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We prioritize
humanity in business

Ultimately, organizations are here to fulfill human needs and create value for society. If you don’t do that well enough, you are not in business. That means organizational success depends on how much it can understand people (employees and customers) and serve them in a more relevant and meaningful way than your competitors. And yet, it’s challenging to do that right. That is why we help organizations rediscover the deeply human ways they can connect with people and society. Our approach involves utilizing sociocultural trends, which we have captured in our proprietary Human Context Circle TM. These trends help you to gain a better understanding of the human context, make sense of societal shifts, and human-proof the future of your organization. A future is human-proof when organizational, marketing, innovation, and communication strategies are inspired by and resonate with deep human needs, values, and behavior.

Signals

In our blog, we track global events, interpreting their implications for brands and organizations based on sociocultural insights.

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Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist

Kees his purpose is to help ambitious leaders and brands to human-proof their business. In 2003 he founded TrendsActive, a trend consultancy enabling brands to become more human centric.

Kees consults global brands like

  • Disney
  • The Coca-Cola Company
  • Asics
  • Discovery Channel
  • Swiss Life
  • Vodafone

and many more.

Next to being the founder of TrendsActive, he is also initiator of the first academic trend master for executives at the University of Utrecht and is initiator of various trend studies and white papers on subjects like trust, meaning, visual culture & generations.

Aljan De Boer

Keynote speaker

Aljan has been widely recognized as an inspiring professional speaker on the critical trends that will shape society in the decades to come. He works as the Head of Inspiration at TrendsActive, a trend consultancy from the Netherlands using social science to human-proof business decision for brands like

  • Disney
  • Vodafone
  • Hugo Boss
  • ASR
  • Rabobank

Next to his role at TrendsActive he is the Community Director at the Institute for Real Growth where he inspires and connects a global community of +400 CMOs.  

He has been on the board of the Dutch Platform of Innovative Marketing for almost a decade. Regular speaker and moderator for the Dutch Marketing Awards and 3 times winner of the best of MIE. 

Kim Pillen

Consultant

Before Kim Pillen started as a trend consultant at TrendsActive, she worked for four years as a creative strategist at Dept. For brands such as Philips, bol.com, Beiersdorf, JBL, and the Consumers’ Association, she built (online) campaign, brand, and social media strategies. After four years, she decided that she wanted to better understand people and society in order to advise brands more effectively. That’s how she ended up at TrendsActive. Here, she can do what she loves most: digging into people’s needs and then working with brands to see how and where they can be relevant and meaningful.

Douwe Knijff

Researcher

Douwe is fascinated by how people work. With a background in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences (Bachelor) and Psychology (Master) and an analytical mind he tries figure out how societal shifts manifest themselves through social culture and human behaviour.

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Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist

Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist