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Thriving Brands in a Complex Society

Global uncertainty. Rising polarization. The rapid mainstreaming of AI. If anything, 2026 will be even more complex than the world we’re navigating today. But complexity isn’t something to fear. It’s something to understand, navigate, and even turn into an advantage.

About the session:

We’ll look beyond the noise and dive into the human context behind today’s turbulence: the societal trends, emotional undercurrents, and behavioural shifts shaping how people think, feel and act.

We’ll explore questions like:

  • How do you guide people who feel overwhelmed by modern life?
  • Why polarization isn’t always the catastrophe it’s made out to be.
  • What opportunities complexity creates for brands willing to step up.

What to expect:

  • Deep socio-cultural insights that decode today’s complex society
  • Concrete strategies your brand can apply immediately
  • Real-world case studies from brands that are thriving by embracing complexity

Details of the Webinar:

  • Fri, 23 Jan 2026
  • 11.00 – 11.45
  • via Zoom
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Author

Aljan De Boer

Take part in our webinar and grow
in your business.

23. January 2026 • 11.00 – 11.45 • Zoom

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Thriving Brands in a Complex Society

Global uncertainty. Rising polarization. The rapid mainstreaming of AI. If anything, 2026 will be even more complex than the world we’re navigating today. But

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Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist

Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist

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Tabea Höllger

Partner

Tabea Höllger specializes in brand positioning in saturated markets and measuring brand success. One of her key areas of expertise is the FMCG sector, where she focuses on topics such as product launches and the impact of packaging.

Tabea sees herself as a bridge-builder at the intersection of the FMCG market, sustainable brand management, and emerging technologies. She firmly believes that knowledge transfer between these three perspectives is essential for successfully addressing the challenges of the future.

In addition, Tabea has established herself over many years as an expert in creating engaging and memorable brand experiences. She helps companies inspire their employees to embrace and champion the brand strategy.

After gaining experience in market and advertising research and spending time abroad in the United States and the Philippines, the trained business psychologist returned to BrandTrust in 2016.

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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.

Kees

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A bi-weekly newsletter in which we keep track of what’s going on in the world and translate based on our sociocultural knowledge, what this means to brands.

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.

Kim

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.

Douwe

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. 

Aljan

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.

Kees