This week I'm writing about something I've been thinking about for months: why aesthetics alone won't differentiate you anymore, and what actually creates brands that feel inevitable.
In this piece:
💛 Why everyone looking the same is costing you money
💛 What cultural intelligence actually means (with real examples)
💛 The three forces converging to make this urgent now
💛 How to stop hiding your actual competitive advantage
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The wellness and beauty landscape is saturated with brands that look identical.
Muted tones. Elegant serifs. Minimalist photography. "Self-care" language. Instagram grids that could belong to anyone.
Five years ago, this was differentiation. Clean beauty was emerging. Scandinavian minimalism felt fresh. Now? It's default. It's template. Or even worse… it's Canva.
And here's the uncomfortable truth: You can't Canva your way into mattering.
You can't template your way to loyalty. You can't aestheticise your way to cultural relevance. You can't design your way out of being forgettable.
Because the brands that are winning, the ones that command pricing power, build devoted communities, and feel inevitable rather than interchangeable, aren't just well-designed.
They're culturally intelligent.
And that's a completely different game.
image by H&F
What I mean by cultural intelligence
I spent 10 years as a designer making beautiful brands that quietly disappeared.
I couldn't figure out why. The work was good. The founders were talented. The products deserved to succeed.
I was born in Poland but lived most of my life in Norway, 21 years to be exact. Living between cultures taught me what design school never did:
Belonging isn't designed. It's earned.
You have to understand:
Where you are (culturally, not just geographically)
Who you're serving (culturally, not just demographically)
What codes you're claiming (intentionally, not accidentally)
That's cultural intelligence. It's the layer beneath design that determines whether a brand feels chosen or just... nice.
Let me show you what this looks like in practice.
Three brands that belong (not just exist)
Aesop: Earning belonging, one neighbourhood at a time
Aesop doesn't just design beautiful stores. They study the architecture of every neighbourhood before they open.
Norwegian slate in Oslo. Kyoto wood in Japan. Melbourne brick in their hometown.
They integrate into arts and literary communities, sponsoring readings, collaborating with local architects, creating spaces that feel like they've always been there.
This is what "whisper where others shout" actually means: They earn belonging by understanding the culture they're entering, not just importing a brand aesthetic.
Walk into an Aesop store anywhere in the world and it feels different. But it also feels like Aesop. Local materials, global philosophy.
They're not selling soap. They're selling intellectual minimalism, a cultural code that says "I'm thoughtful about what I bring into my space."
Every design choice reinforces this. Every material speaks this language. Every product name references literature or philosophy.
That's not branding. That's cultural intelligence.
The Ordinary: When radical transparency becomes culture
The Ordinary could have been just another affordable skincare line.
Instead, they made their entire aesthetic about anti-marketing.
Clinical packaging. Ingredient names as product names. "Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1%" instead of "Brightening Wonder Serum."
No influencers. No aspirational imagery. No emotional storytelling.
Just: Here's what's in it. Here's what it does. Here's the price.
This created a cultural movement. Suddenly knowing your actives became cool. Understanding formulations became the new literacy. The beauty counter became a lab.
They didn't just sell products. They shifted the entire conversation about what "smart beauty" means.
That's cultural intelligence. Understanding that there was a growing audience exhausted by beauty marketing, and giving them an alternative cultural code to belong to.
Byredo: When mixed heritage becomes brand DNA
Founder Ben Gorham is half-Indian, half-Canadian, raised in Sweden.
He could have hidden that complexity. Made the brand "Swedish" or "luxury" or "niche fragrance."
Instead, he made his mixed cultural identity the entire brand.
Each fragrance tells a cultural story:
Gypsy Water references Romani culture
Mojave Ghost evokes the American Southwest
Sundazed captures California cotton fields
You're not buying perfume. You're buying cultural fluency. The ability to reference multiple worlds, to move between codes, to understand that identity is layered.
The minimalist packaging whispers Sweden. The storytelling whispers everywhere else. The tension between those two things? That's the brand.
Byredo customers aren't just buying scent. They're saying, "I'm culturally curious. I understand references. I move between worlds."
That positioning is impossible to copy, because it's rooted in the founder's actual lived experience.
See the pattern?
Three completely different strategies:
Aesop = local integration
The Ordinary = cultural disruption
Byredo = identity as brand
But all three understood something most wellness brands miss: Culture first, aesthetics second.
What this means for beauty & wellness founders
Most founders I talk to can speak for an hour about their philosophy. Then I look at their Instagram and it's... beige squares and generic captions. Where did all that depth go?
Here's what I believe: You have a structural advantage you're not using.
Cultural intelligence isn't just about being "Scandinavian" or "Alpine."
It's about the strategic cultural choices you make:
→ Who are you designed for (and who aren't you for)?
→ What communities do you serve?
→ What values do you embody?
→ How do you show up in culture?
→ What codes do you speak?
Some brands navigate tensions like:
Clinical precision vs. Ritualistic experience (The Ordinary vs. Aesop)
Ancient wisdom vs. Cutting-edge science (Susanne Kaufmann vs. Augustinus Bader)
Accessible wellness vs. Insider authority
But there are infinite cultural positioning choices:
→ Who you represent and how
→ Which aesthetic movements you belong to
→ What generational codes you speak
→ Which subcultures you serve
→ What class markers you signal
→ How you show up around gender, identity, community
Most founders try to be everything to everyone.
Which means they're nothing to anyone.
The Norwegian brand that could own "outdoor resilience philosophy rooted in friluftsliv" is instead saying "clean, minimal skincare."
You're not hiding your heritage. You're hiding your strategic positioning.
Let me show you what I mean.
The Difference between generic and cultural
Let me show you what strategic cultural positioning looks like in practice.
Scenario: A Norwegian founder launches a skincare line.
Generic positioning:
"Clean, minimal, Scandinavian skincare for modern skin"
What choices were made here? None.
Clinical or Ritualistic? Unclear.
Ancient Wisdom or Cutting-Edge Science? Both? Neither?
Luxury-as-Indulgence or Luxury-as-Discipline? Doesn't say.
Performance or Presence? Could be either.
High velocity or slow burn? Who knows.
This could be 30 different brands. There's nothing to hold onto.
Cultural positioning:
"Skincare rooted in friluftsliv. The Norwegian philosophy of open-air living."
Now watch the strategic choices cascade:
✦ Position: Luxury-as-discipline
This isn't about pampering. It's about preparing your skin to live outside.
✦ Position: Presence over Performance
Not transformation. Resilience. Being equipped for the conditions you choose to live in.
✦ Position: Ancient Wisdom applied to Modern Context
A thousand-year-old Nordic relationship with weather + contemporary formulation science.
✦ Position: Ritualistic (but functional ritual)
Morning routine = preparing to go outside. Evening routine = recovery from elements.
✦ Position: Insider wellness (slow cultural velocity)
If you don't understand friluftsliv, this isn't for you. That's the filter.
✦ The brand world:
Modern & bright wool sweaters. Mountain / outdoor aesthetics. Skin that can handle fog, wind or cold. Products named after weather conditions or landscapes.
✦ The customer:
Not "clean beauty enthusiast." But "someone who hikes in February."
Same products. Different cultural positioning. Completely different pricing power.
Suddenly, it's not "clean skincare brand #47."
It's "the Norwegian outdoor skin philosophy."
Why this matters right now
Three things are converging that make cultural intelligence urgent:
1. The aesthetic ceiling
Everyone looks good now. Clean design is table stakes. Minimalism is default.
The Scandinavian minimal aesthetic that felt fresh in 2019? It's now the baseline for every wellness brand from Oslo to Austin to Melbourne.
You can't differentiate on "pretty" anymore. The bar is too high and everyone's cleared it. So now what?
2. The identity economy
Gen Z isn't shopping by category; they're building identity through brands.
They're not asking, "What does this do?"
They're asking, "What does this say about me?"
Highsnobiety and BCG found that 70% of Gen Z make purchase decisions during the "inspiration phase”, before they even know they're shopping. They're discovering brands through cultural content, not product searches.
This completely changes the game.
Your ingredient list doesn't matter if your brand doesn't mean anything culturally.
3. The burnout breaking point
The "post 3x per day, launch every quarter, be everywhere" playbook is breaking founders.
I see it constantly. Talented people are burning out trying to keep up with an algorithm that doesn't care about depth.
There's hunger for a different way. One that doesn't require constant performance. One that rewards philosophy over frequency.
Depth over volume. Meaning over noise.
European founders are uniquely positioned for this shift.
You already have the depth. You're just not building brands around it.
The gap that's costing you
Here's the problem I see most often:
What founders believe they're building: "A thoughtful, research-backed wellness brand rooted in Nordic principles of balance and simplicity"
What the market actually sees: "Another minimal skincare brand with nice packaging"
That gap? That's where everything leaks:
Your pricing power
Your customer loyalty
Your competitive moat
Your cultural relevance
You end up competing on function (ingredients, efficacy, clean formulations) when you could own meaning.
And competing on function means competing on price. Which means watching your margins disappear.
Cultural intelligence closes that gap.
It's the work of making sure your depth is actually visible. That your codes are clear. That your positioning is cultural, not just aesthetic.
What I'm building (and why I'm telling you this)
This is what I'm dedicating the next year to: helping European wellness founders build cultural intelligence into their brands.
Not "make it pretty" (you already have that).
Not "clarify your messaging" (that's surface work).
But: Understand where you belong. Who you're for, culturally. What codes you should own. How to build brands that feel inevitable, not just desirable.
I'm calling it “The Cultural Intelligence Method”
It's the layer of strategy most founders never get taught because most strategists don't understand culture, they understand marketing.
Over the next few months, I'll be sharing:
Frameworks for cultural positioning (like the one I used to analyse Aesop, The Ordinary, Byredo)
Cultural translations (what fashion, food, and design teach us about wellness)
Pioneer profiles (the consumers who shape brands before trends break)
Real brand audits (what's working, what's leaking, what to change)
Some free (like this). Some deeper work for founders ready to go all-in.
But all of it comes from one belief:
The European wellness brands that win the next five years won't be the loudest or the prettiest. They'll be the ones that belong somewhere, clearly, authentically, undeniably.
If You're Feeling This
If you're reading this and thinking:
✦ "Yes! This is exactly what I've been trying to articulate but couldn't"
✦ "I have so much depth, but my brand doesn't show it"
✦ "I'm tired of looking like everyone else"
✦ "I want to stop competing on function and start owning culture"
You're probably ready for this work.
Not "someday when I have budget."
Not "after I figure out X first."
Now. Because the longer you wait, the more you blend in.
I'm working with a small number of European wellness founders in Q1 on The Cultural Intelligence Method, a strategic work that maps:
Where you sit culturally (vs. where you think you sit)
The gap between founder intention and market perception
Your actual cultural pioneers (not just demographics)
The codes you're speaking vs. should be speaking
How to build a brand that feels uncopyable
This isn't a logo redesign or messaging refresh.
It's strategic brand work through a cultural intelligence lens.
If you've been asking yourself, "where does my brand actually belong?"
Just send me a DM and let’s connect ☺
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