S7E02 Beyond Trend Stuffification with Louise Byg Kongsholm

Louise Byg Kongsholm explains in this episode that companies must navigate "trend stuffification" by distinguishing between short-term noise and long-term strategic patterns that address fundamental human needs. She advocates for life stage segmentation over traditional demographics and warns that AI should be treated as a tool rather than a business strategy to protect the essential human "creative spark". 

Louise Byg Kongsholm is CEO of pej gruppen – scandinavian trend institute, a company with more than 50 years of experience in decoding trends and making them actionable for Scandinavian companies.

She works as a trend researcher, author, speaker and advisor across Scandinavia. She is also editor-in-chief of three professional magazines and has written several books on topics such as trend sociology, the future of retail, life stage segmentation and creativity. She is known for translating complex societal and cultural shifts into clear strategic insight.

Her work centres on zeitgeist analysis, megatrends and consumer behaviour, with a strong focus on how uncertainty, values and cultural change shape markets and everyday decision-making. Rather than treating trends as isolated phenomena, she analyses patterns, signals and underlying drivers. From this perspective, colour is not a discipline in itself, but a visible expression of deeper cultural moods and collective states of mind.

Transcript

Judith van Vliet: And welcome Back to the second episode of the Color Authority Podcast 2026. Today, I will be interviewing Louise Byg Kongsholm. She is CEO of PEJ Gruppen, a Scandinavian trend institute with over 50 years of experience in decoding trends and making them actionable for Scandinavian companies. Louise works as a trend researcher, author, speaker, and advisor across Scandinavia. She's also editor in chief of three professional magazines and has written several books, 10 and one in the making, on topics such as trend sociology, the future of retail, lifestyle segmentation, and creativity. Let's hear what Louise has to say about what's coming for 2026. Good afternoon, Louise, and welcome to the Color Authority Podcast.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Thank you for having me.

Judith van Vliet: So you're based in. You're in Denmark. Just for everybody who doesn't know, you're based in Denmark, up in the north, and you have PI. Wonderful trend company. Because I know, because I've been there. I've been to your amazing farm, which is a beautiful place to, to do trends and to listen to presentations. And that's where you are right now as well, right? Doing the podcast. So we've known each other for a while. Perhaps to some people in the audience, you're new, so we're going to talk a little bit about your company and who you are and how you came to where you are today. But also it's the beginning of 2026 and everybody is just waiting to know what's next. And that's also why I invited you, because I know you know what's next, and I think a lot of people are going to be looking at what you guys are going to be doing. So I think one of the first things is the deep trends, which I've, I've been talking a little bit about and I think my, my podcast a little bit. But I know you have a very particular vision on that that I like you to share. But you say that trends are patterns rather than isolated phenomena. So you mainly work with companies. How do, how does that, you feel, shift that perspective when it comes to change for companies when they're trying to understand the future? Because I think especially today, we're living in a very weird world and many companies need to know what's next.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: We've been living in a weird world for quite some time. I think maybe if we roll it all the way back to March 2020, things went crazy. And through that time, through the Corona period, I guess most companies realize it, that they need to look inwards because they couldn't control what was happening outside the company. Whether There was a lockdown or not, whether people had to come into work or not. So that was sort of the first indication that the next period of time which then went into the cost of living crisis with inflation and interest rates and now there's war was situation where most companies have to look inwards, really focus on who are we, what do we do, what are we experts at, what problems or needs do we solve? And then basically try to shut all the noise out because you're just going to go crazy if you want to stay updated on everything.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah, I think that's. There's a lot of trends right now and we've talked about micro trends and micro trends and megatrends. It's difficult to focus and I think it's very difficult for companies to understand. So what direction do I take? Which one? Right?

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Yeah, yeah, we talk about trend stuffification that there are so many trends. You can just Google trends, you can find it on TikTok, you can find it on some of the biggest online trend services. You have trends to feed poor families everywhere. There are so many trends. So the job for us really isn't cover or understand the multitude of trends but to try to figure out which matter to which client and try to pull it into a perspective of more long term, long term strategic decisions and not more like what is the color of this product we're launching tomorrow. But where are we heading more long term?

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, I know. I mean we exchanged some emails again before we got onto on this podcast and you said but Judith, I'm not a color person but I know you have an opinion about color and we're going to be talking about color anyhow because I think everybody has an opinion about color. Impossible. But what is color to you personally but also what is color to your company as pie?

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Yeah, we've been in the Trend business for 50 years. We actually celebrated our 50th year last year. And I'm the second generation of a company who work with and is very focused on color. Me personally, not my key focus and interest. I have people in my team who I guess dream in color combination mood boards and color references. But I see trends and colors as strongly interlinked. Colors are cultural signals. They are the visual expression of trends. And we have clients who work on seasons right ahead. So they're working on the spring summer 26 collection or they're working on the spring summer 28 collection. And no matter where they are, they need a direction of zeitgeist, consumer behavior, megatrends, micro trends and Then efficiently. Also colors.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah, that's what you said. We don't really do the color for your next product that's going to launch in three months. You're way ahead of the game. You're really about the strategy of a company, which color is part of that strategy. But it's not the main product that you produce as pie. It's connected, as you said, it's linked.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: And then it's all about linking also color to the DNA of that company because it needs to match who they are, what they want to be, how they want to be perceived. Everything has to be linked. And I guess most people. People don't think about how important color is. And you speak a lot about the sort of the basic meaning of color and how much it means in everyday life. But most people will realize when a color feels off, if it doesn't work. You realize, ha, something here doesn't work. But you don't realize how much work is put into choosing the right color that feels right. So it's also like a false understanding of what color is and what it can do.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. And very often when a product doesn't work or a service doesn't work, not always do people understand that perhaps it is the color or it is the shade.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: It's probably a combination. It could be the combination that's off. And it takes years and years to get that feeling of what colors can do. And you need to experiment and you need to do something wrong and then realize that you misstepped or did something wrong and then adjust it back to something that feels right.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. I think generally we learn from mistakes. You need to do it wrong sometimes, you know, and that's for everybody. That's for smaller companies, it's for bigger companies. And that's how you can also take them by the hands a little bit and. And teach them and try to make them feel a little bit more comfortable about the choices that they. That they make. 50 years already, you said, well, technically it's going to be 51 this year of PI Gupin. I know it's a family company. And how has it changed fundamentally from obviously when your parents started it and the first time.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: It was a long time ago. It was back in the 70s. The main focus was on fashion. At that point in time, that was the only types of businesses that were interested in trends and colors. Back then, everything was analog. Just imagine, everything was analog. Whereas today we're in a completely different space and spot in time, where today we service both fashion, interior furniture, retail food, Travel Beauty. Beauty. It's every lifestyle business that's interested in site guide trends and consumer behavior and henceforth colors that we have as clients today. So we've sort of spread out our knowledge on several types of businesses and industries and consequently also communicate a lot more. We are dependent on the Internet to communicate to everybody. And then at the same time the Internet has just exploded with content. I saw a graph just the other day that more than half of the content that's being published right now now on the Internet, news articles, prints, social media is now made by a robot. So the content has just exploded. Content inflation. Again, speaking to us, being the party that helps you sort through the trend. Stuffification.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, but also that's, I mean it's like Netflix and Spotify. There's so much music, so many movies we can't even see in three lifetimes. Imagine all the trend information that's out there and which I think it's, it's just difficult to filter. Indeed. Yeah. And that's, I think that's, that's why.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: We need to be very strict in sorting it. Is it a zeitgeist phenomena? Is it a mega trend, a gigatrend, a micro trend that happens very shortly and then disappears? Which you cannot base a strategy on. You can probably base a social media campaign on it, but then it's gone.

Judith van Vliet: Or even a limited production or very limited edition? Yeah, but yeah, no, and that's, I think something that we still have to teach a lot of companies. You know, especially when it comes to color of the year phenomena and stuff like that.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: It's very short lived, but it's fun. And it's very precise in understanding now that we're speaking about color of the Year, it's very precise in understanding what's happening right now. Then you need to act on it right now and not six months from now. So you need to understand how we as a color authority and you as well, do this work with colors and how they can be applied?

Judith van Vliet: Yep, exactly. How do you distinguish? Because you just said the macro micro. There's so many trends out there. There's a lot of terminology as well, which I think for a lot of people is obviously confusing. But how do you distinguish between something that's really a true societal change into a short lived cultural signal? How can we understand those differences?

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Some of the major trends, giga trends or sight guide changes take time and it's very difficult to see them while you're in it. You will often reflect on them sort of in the rearview Mirror. And then our job is trying to extrapolate that into the future. It takes time. But what is often an indicator is that it affects all industries. So it doesn't just belong in fashion. You will also see it in furniture, in interior, in travel. It cuts across industries and it speaks volumes about the basic needs of a modern consumer. Right now we're all, what are we longing for? We're longing for stability, calmness. And that then has a consequence for the products and services that we seek out and value as high priced items. And what is the ultimate luxury today is being off grid, offline. Writing something down on a tactile physical piece of paper, stuff like that is very clear analog of what we basically need.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah. I think it's the analog and craft. Doing stuff with your hands Here. Madrid ceramic workshops are just popping up weekly. And it's, it's just indeed it's, it's getting, getting offline. I mean we've had the browns, but I do see browns coming back again because it's very simple. It's those colors of stability, you know, chocolates, cacao, coffee.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Coffee, cacao, slow brew coffee, vinyl records. And we've talked about this for ages and people listening to this podcast will probably say, well, we've talked about this before. Yeah. But this is, this is what is still at the very focus with most modern consumers in terms of product categories. We also see health, longevity, mental health, all of those aspects are also present. So we have several Giga and mega trends at the same time and they all speak volumes about what the modern consumer is longing for.

Judith van Vliet: Yep. And I think that's sometimes a mistake. Oh yeah, but I've already heard about it. Yes, but we've already done that trend, so we can't hop on that train again. It's not entirely true. It's just sometimes you've talked about it, but have you really used it and have you assessed it in the market? Butter yellow, I mean it was so last year. We still see it because it's the color that comforts us as well.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: It takes time for every consumer. And you talk about different consumer types, whether they're innovators or late adopters. You can attack all of those different market groups and some of them take longer in realizing that they need the butter yellow.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You need to understand where your company is in that diamond shaped, diamond shaped figure that indeed. I think it was from a Danish trend, trend designer book that, that I read as well. Are we, when we talk about one dominant zeitgeist I think there's not really one dominant zeitgeist currently. I think there's many. But if you would pick one, I.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Think, I think from an overall perspective also, if I am to sort of poke into like strateg decisions at the moment, I think many companies are currently struggling to choose between either going completely mental on AI and Lean and processes and data and Last Mile Obsession and Omnichannel and making everything as convenient and data driven agentic AI. You can either go that way. And most companies who are interested in that are at the moment in a panic because they think their competitor is already far ahead. They are. McKinsey studies show it's only 1 to 2% of global companies who are actually now doing that. So take your time. Or you go the opposite. You go all human, you go in your face, you go tactile. You do customer relations with real people and not chatbots talking to you. You do live events and not online events. And we're trying to choose now between the two or three actively deciding that you want to do both. Everybody's discussing that with themselves now or in their board meetings, which way to go and then beyond that. One of the absolute key drivers for the next five to 10 years, and we were already touching it before Corona is that everything that has to do with good life experience, economy, traveling, going to the theater, going to a concert, taking care of your body, taking care of your mind, it was already in the cards. But after Corona, we realized very basically that we're going to die. And as a consequence of that, we've seen a multitude of products as manifestations of the health trend and taking care of yourself and your mental health, family, friends, whatever, that we are investing heavily in everything from physical training to vitamins and minerals and supplements and collagen and travel and partying and stuff, because we realized you only live once and that was coming anyway. But it got like pushed five years ahead into the future with Corona.

Judith van Vliet: Yep. No, that's true. I think we. Death was sort of a taboo in Europe. It's not in other cultures, especially not in Mexico, for example, but it was in Europe. And now it's also. It's become part of the conversation. And I think it's interesting. Even just in my street, we have four new gyms. I'm like, who's going? And they're all empty, but for some reason they keep opening up. It's interesting. Outdoor is also continuously to grow. I think it's interesting the times we're living, but I think AI still scares a Lot of people. Do you feel that as well?

Louise Byg Kongsholm: I'll just give you a brief comment on health and then we'll talk about AI. I have Danish numbers. Not sure they apply to everywhere else. But the spending on everything that has. Out of home entertainment has doubled in five years. In home entertainment has doubled in five years. And. And everything that has to do with beauty or health has tripled in five years. It speaks volumes. AI. Let me get back to that. I feel very adequately because I was raised by someone who pays attention to words. She was a teacher. That a lot of companies are now thinking about an AI strategy. And that's wrong because AI is a tool. That would be the same as you saying, I want a calculator strategy or a PowerPoint strategy or computer strategy. AI is a tool. It is not your strategy. Your strategy might be to go global or become more innovative or become more competent at using AI, but it cannot be an AI strategy. That would be the same as saying, I have a computer strategy. So we need to remove AI from like the golden ticket to everything to a tool and then learn how to use it across all types of jobs in the businesses. And it will change the way we work, the way we communicate, how we share stuff. Stuff. Some jobs will disappear. We've had a multitude of Danish companies closed down already. The companies who do translations, do we need them in the future? Probably not. But it's a tool. It's not the golden ticket for everything. You cannot have an AI strategy, if you catch my drift.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. And I think that's a very important point that you made that you can't have that. It's part of. It's a tool in the strategy. But it's not a strategy.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: It's not this strategy in itself. It cannot be.

Judith van Vliet: So is this one of the. So I was going to ask you about megatrends. Right. Because mega trends, I think are more important. And I think most companies need to focus on something that's more longer term than short term. Just also, even if we talk about sustainability and for sustainability, sake of life. But is there a megatrend that you feel a lot of companies speak about, but they really don't really yet understand or act upon it strategically. Would that also be AI, or do.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: You think it's AI? Yeah, it's AI Panic everywhere. And it's gone from AI being talked about at the board of directors or management C level to now being applied all over the organization. It's like everyone's gone crazy. We talked about sustainability and CSR for five years and now that's just put to a side. And everybody's hoping that AI will solve our sustainability problems. Yeah, but let's see what happens. But it's from an outside perspective and trying to figure out what actually motivates company owners and what they are thinking about. It's weird to see that sudden shift of them talking about sustainability then going on full on corona panic, cost of living crisis, panic and now AI panic. Instead of like sitting down, don't go into a panic. Sit down, find out what is your business based on. Which basic needs are you trying to SOL in a B2B or B2C connection? Why are you here and what would the world miss if you were not here? And then focus on that and try to stop the panic. Basically is my communication.

Judith van Vliet: It's the value and need which is the very base of a trend. You know what is the values of a company and the needs of its consumers. And I think AI can be cool. And so as many trends, they can all be cool. But it doesn't mean you need to hop on every train.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: No, you probably need to sort 9 out of 10 trends, just pull them to a side and say they are not. It's nice to know that they are here. But it's not relevant to my company or my consumer. Otherwise you will get stressed in trying to figure out how everything applies to you. Yep.

Judith van Vliet: It's the restaurants with large menus.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: And we all choose the same two or three courses anyway.

Judith van Vliet: So it doesn't exactly like you've written extensively. I mean I don't, I, I've lost count how many books you've.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: About 10 and 1 is in the printing right now, coming out next week.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, I have, I have one here. It's. It's up here. My, my bookshelf. But you've written extensively about life stage segmentation. Why is this approach more relevant than traditional demographic thinking? That's still many people apply today. Why is this more key?

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Well, I've written several books on trend sociology. I'm co writing a book right now on creativity because creativity is the one thing we're all going to miss in the future and what AI cannot do for us. And then I've written quite a few books on life stage segmentation and the basic understanding is that we path through 17 different life stages based on where we are in life. And I'll give you an example. You can have your first child when you're 28, 34, 38, 42, 45. It's the fact that you, you have your first child, that your entire life changes, or the second child, third child, or the children move away from home, you reach retirement age. And retirement age can be 60, 65, 75. It doesn't really matter how old you are based on your birth certificate. It's where you are in life that matters in terms of how you spend time and money. That's why we've, since 2007 and again in 2020 when we republished the book in a new format, have tried to push this thinking of more qualitative understanding of where consumers are, how they, what they value, what they spend time on. And you can apply it in consumer setting, but you can also apply it as someone who's hiring staff or having the annual like conversation with your staff. Where are they in life? Are they expecting the next child? Do they need shorter hours? Are the children not there or are they moving out? Can your career then change? So understanding where people are in life and what their main motivators are, why do they get up in the morning? And in most instances it isn't to go to work, it's to be with your children or your family or doing your spare time activities. For many people, work is a means towards an end. It's a job, it's a salary that makes everything else work. And if you understand everything else, you can also understand them as someone who's hiring them or talking to them. And then of course it applies in all consumers perspectives depending on where you are. And we've been doing that since 2007 and we have quite a big amount of clients who use it. And we also have media houses who have then applied it to their very basic data pulling on consumer behavior where they resort the data, they get it in based on gender, age and maybe postal code or income brackets. And then they sort of rearrange the numbers so that they fit into life stages instead based on how many children you have, whether you live in an apartment or a house, stuff like that.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, I think it's also because already many years ago, but traditional roles also keep changing. Women are not having children as our parents probably did, but we're also changing work more often. There's different lifestyles that we have in one life or sometimes even within five.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Or you might take an absent like a leave, leave for a year midway through your career and do some schooling or just go away traveling and we're working until later in life, maybe part time. So things are changing. And talking about a consumer as an age, like this consumer is 48, that's fine. She's 48 of age. But does she have children, does she work full time, where does she live, what's her interests? All of that is way more important than her age.

Judith van Vliet: So very true. I've started to see a little bit with consumers also being contradictory in their behavior. Is that also something that you see? And it's very difficult for brands to understand because they want one thing and then they want the other thing.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Yeah. First of all, most consumers lie and I'm sorry to be the one be bearer of bearing news bad news, but whenever you have like a consumer survey or you as a company ask consumers of what they want, they will always lie. They will always answer the question based on how they would like their life to look like. So the answers are based on yes, I live a very healthy lifestyle. I get a lot of sleep, I eat very healthily, I get my exercise very good at meeting deadlines. You answer based on your wish or thinking aspirations. So that's number one. Number two is that we are trying to make ends meet and we talk about a consumer spending that's basically shaped like an hourglass. If you look at volume. So at the very top of the hourglass you have everything that's about health experiences, luxury brands, the very expensive coffee, the expensive chocolate, the reformer training, and you are happy to pay a high price ticket for that because it is something that you value and makes your life feel good. It's something that is aspirational but is also good here and now. If you then look at the very bottom of the hourglass, you have everything you need to just make life run, like your milk, your oatmeal, your utility bills, everything that's pretty boring and just needs to be as basically priced and preferably with a discount. And that's where we place our money. And then if you look at sort of in your mind, if you see an hourglass, the middle part of that hourglass is very small and it signals the volume. A lot of consumers don't want the stuff that's in the middle. That's not really luxury, not really good life and not cheap either. So what is it? It's nothing. So consumers, and based on their individual private understanding of what good life is, for some it's bicycling. It's not for me. For some it's drinking red wine. That's not for me, I don't think red wine. So we're all very individual in what we value as the top part of that hourglass and what we want to spend money on because it makes sense to us as individuals.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah. And that's why it's so difficult to. Well, to get those consumers, obviously, and to get them to buy your products, because they all want something different which is similar to color. Because in the end, color is something that's very personal, it is emotional, and it is indeed a mood. And that's also how you describe color, not necessarily as a discipline, but as an expression of collective moods. Why? What cultural states of mind are most visible in color, do you feel?

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Right now I am fortunate to live in sort of the northern Scandinavian hemisphere. And we've had the opportunity and sort of the positive backlash of just being Scandinavian for quite some time, because most of the world likes. Let's see what happens next. Like the Scandinavian colors and the color combinations and the very strong link with nature, but all very, like, simple, subdued, minimalistic, almost Japanese. And we've had that for decades. Like Danish, Scandinavian. Nordic design is founded in the 1920s. In the 1920s. It's a long time ago. And it feels so natural to most of us. Whereas elsewhere in the world, they look at this color discipline that we have and this cultural understanding of what good design and good color is, and they want a part of that. So for us, it feels very natural. It's the way that we decorate our homes, it's the way that we sell products. It's the way that we communicate. It feels natural to us.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. And one other thing. Obviously, when you apply the Nordic color scheme in a different part of the world, it's also, you know, it's going to be so different because of the light that you have.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Yeah, it's a very different light.

Judith van Vliet: I'm just surprised. This morning I got up very early and still at 8:30, the sun was not up. It drives me crazy here down in Madrid. And then I go up, up, up north. And you know, it's. It's. The nights are just longer and. And I think that's also what. That's why you have certain colors in the Nordics. That's why you have certain colors. Obviously here, here in the south, it's all light. Everything is light.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: It's. It's based on light and it's b. Based on culture. What and what you were brought up as a kid, like, even talking about what do you eat for Christmas that's also crossroad based, and you feel that something that is natural to eat Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, where. And then you meet a partner who's had something else for Christmas, and then the discussion happens right Same with color. Something is embedded in you as a child or a youngster that these are the color scales that work in a house or in clothes. And we are, I guess for some of the trend forecasters that we work with through years, they speak about the Scandinavian color palette as extremely subdued and a bit boring. And we're fine with that. That's, that's, that's what we are.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah. It's what fits, you know. So yeah. How many companies do you believe avoid should void start avoiding color superficially and start doing color strategically. And in my line of work I still see it's not really happening, but I'd like to hear your opinion about it as well.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: I guess sort of if you cut it really down to the basics. I think most people should stay away from the short lived color trends unless they have a very basic product that works in all color settings and their marketing team then can go crazy and just follow the latest trend on TikTok, then it works. But for the basic product and what we see is in most companies is they try to do like a basic color palette or color range that's about 80% of their entire colors and they stick to that and then they have 10, 15, 20% of their colors that can change every year or every second year that are more interesting zeitgeisty trend oriented but it doesn't mess with the base. Yeah, that would be, that's what we're helping a lot of companies with.

Judith van Vliet: Yep. Yeah, same here. We're trying to introduce more classics and then throw in some colors that perhaps have a less long time span that that really depends on the brand. Indeed. But yeah, you're completely right. Jumping on the latest color trends, it's not for everybody.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: And if it is, it's more a marketing social media thing than a strategic product development innovation thing.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, it's online for sure. Yeah. You said you also have written books about creativity. How has the role of creativity changed in a time where we just talked about data and algorithms plays such a big role in decision making.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Yeah, I saw almost a year ago like quadrant of skills that were made by the World Economic Forum where they scoped out different types of skills and which skills would be what they call out of focus by 2030. And out of focus skills for 2030 is basic mathematics, multilingualism, being able to translate, being able to write or proofread or stuff like that will be done for us. Us you can just talk and a robot will write it for you and make sure that it's Proofread and translated into 17 different language at once. And that speaks volumes to the future of education. We can do that talk another time because that has to change as a consequence of this and no one's realized what that has of future consequences. And then if you go to the other quadrant of very basic, very much needed focused skills is then IT literacy. You need to be able to speak it on how to, how to prompt and how to control a robot. And also data management because all the data you feed the robot with needs to be of a high quality because if you put **** in, you will get **** out. And then it's about leadership, courage, seeing, imagining the future. And then as a one block in that World Economic Forum quadrant of skills was creativity. And I realized maybe a year and a half ago that yes, this is absolutely going to be something that we are going to miss in the future. We might have a robot or an AI agent to help us with the process, but the original thinking, the creative spark probably needs to happen with or from a human. It can also be in par with an agent and think. I we talked about this for quite some time and then by incident I know a designer who's done design for very different types of companies. It's been interior fashion, equestrian candy, bicycles. He's done design everywhere. And to him design and creativity is about understanding consumer needs, it's about understanding materials, it's about understanding colors and it doesn't matter which industry it is. So it's based on his experience, his cases. And then I've added interviews and theory to that part and it's, it's right now, as we speak, we're speaking now in January, it's at a printer's and coming out end of January because I think this is going to be something we're missing in the future, your creative.

Judith van Vliet: Ideas and I think also empathy. Right. Because to understand consumers you still need empathy. It's not just reading their body language, which I know they're getting there and they're very well capable already to do that, that. But the empathy is the listening and the reading between the lines. Just as you said, consumers lie.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Yeah, they do.

Judith van Vliet: So how do you.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: I think maybe if in the future, if we don't need people who are very prolific in mathematics or stuff, we need people who have studied sociology, psychology, consumer behavior that really understands what triggers us and how we think and why we think and why we act as we do. Because the computer can then do the mathematics.

Judith van Vliet: Exactly. I think that's why neuro aesthetics and neuromarketing is so on the rise as well. Yeah, a whole new podcast on that. Exactly. When you look five to 10 years ahead, what kinds of questions should companies be asking themselves now? But they aren't.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Back to what I said. Focus on the role that you play in people's lives. Whether you're a B2B or B2C company, why are you here? Why do you even matter? And how do you make sure that you also matter five years from now? What does the client customer want from you and are you able to deliver on it? And then consequently, if you promise something, make sure that you do deliver it. And then I guess most people are a bit blind to everything that's happening around them that will affect them. So maybe opening your horizon and your perspective that things might shift in other industries, that will then affect you. Consequently, the translating companies who don't exist anymore because AI came and just took their business away, that's something I would focus on. Things that you could lose your company on. And then if you see that you need to move and change, you need to be willing to do it. And I guess that's where most companies struggle. Because the way you run business today feels good.

Judith van Vliet: It does. And people always try think that everything is linear, you know, so we're doing well right now. We'll keep on doing better and better and better, selling more and more and more. And I think that is bound to change for many industries because they're selling more and more and more, making more and more money. It's life is getting more expensive, but where does it stop? Right.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: And every industry, apart from everything that has to do with health, but every other types of industries that we work with are struggling.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: And that's sort of a very clean indicator of where the future of growth is. That if your product in any way or form can speak to health, mental health, physical health, social health, there is more money to get. Yeah.

Judith van Vliet: And communities, the community word is because that's health. A lot of people see that as different, but it's. Yeah.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Apart from like getting your exercise, eating right, having purpose, get up every day, and being with other people is also health. Don't think of health as just food and diet. Think about it as life health.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, exactly. No, I think indeed the words for 2026 are going to be indeed again, community. Which then people will say, but we've already done that.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: I know, it's just now that it's materializing, you're seeing running clubs everywhere, you're seeing stores that are now doing activities at night and doing board games. We've talked about it. Now it's happening.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's very often people searching for the new and new trends and new, innovative, if trends. Sometimes it's here, it's just a matter of finally acting on it. Yeah, yeah, that's very different.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Yeah.

Judith van Vliet: What makes you most optimistic about the future despite the uncertainty that you analyze every day? Because that's part of your job, you know, to look at that uncertainty.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: I think maybe based on the experience that we had through Corona, cost of living crisis, all of that, that we as humans race and as individuals and consumers are quite adaptable. We can go with the flow. We can change, we can adjust our spending, we can adjust how we live, how we work. We are more, and I hate that word because it comes out of sort of management consultancy vocabulary, but we are agile more than we thought we would be. We all went to a collective panic when Corona happened, but we figured it out. We can figure it out. And the panic about prepping right now is sort of also very strange. I saw a comment in general press saying, doesn't matter if every second household hasn't prepped, just go into your next door neighbor and get some food. Like we can rely on each other. We are all here for each other. I think maybe that's what we learned. And then community, clearly I see that we all need it, but now it's starting to materialize. We've talked about it for quite some time and we've had really nice communities online and Facebook groups and whatever. But we need to meet up in physical space and find people who are like us as individuals and are very interested in what, I don't know, bicycling or sourdough baking or whatever, walking. I find that as sort of a hope for humanity that we want to meet up and talk to each other. And then like random numbers, like the sale of paper notebooks is still increasing. The sale of color books for adults is still increasing. And as a consequence, I think there is hope for humanity that we will mitigate the AI fication of our society at some point. And then I guess we all realize that the pace picked up. Things are now changing faster than we could ever imagine. So we all need to pick up pace. Yeah.

Judith van Vliet: What is your. I'm just throwing this one in because it's just now we're talking about community and religion is back on the agenda. Many different religions. Not just Christianity. Not just. I mean, it could be anything. It could be, it could be.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Or spiritual. It doesn't really matter.

Judith van Vliet: But that's also interesting, right?

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Yeah, it is. More people are now signing into and becoming members of, like, regular churches. But I also came across another word that through the years we've had. You can choose a different gender if you want to, different sex. And you can also change your name. Maybe you can also just like change your religion every two weeks. That's fine. We're flexible.

Judith van Vliet: We're agile.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: We're very agile. And through life you will experience hardship or trouble and have good moments and you meet someone who has some kind of. I would rather call it a faith than a religion.

Judith van Vliet: It's a belief system.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: It's a belief system and we need that. We're longing for that. And it could be the very basic, like Christianity or Muslim, or could be. It can be more spiritual. Like walking into the forest in an analog setting with no conversation, so no noise.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, exactly. There's many different ones out there. When you start looking at different belief systems and different spirituality forms, I just. It's so interesting. It's interesting what comes with it, the colors that can come in with it. How you design a space through Druidism, for example. It's interesting that this is. And it is the uncertainty, for sure.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Well, because the world is chaotic and I think maybe understanding some of the basic consumer behavior that we all need to feel in control in some part of our life. And when everything externally is completely crazy. And you. Whenever you open the newsfeed, it's breaking news. So you need to have control somewhere else. And some pour that into extreme discipline that we've seen maybe on social media where they get up at 4 and do ice bathing and eat 54 different types of supplements and stuff. That's also control. Or it can be control of this and your thinking and your beliefs. We need some part of our life where we feel that we know what's going to happen and where we've actually made a choice and isn't dictated by something that's going on around us.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. You can only dictate your own inner circle. Yeah, very true. I know you're not really a color girl, but I'm going to ask you the question anyhow. What is your personal color power?

Louise Byg Kongsholm: I am boring in the sense that I'm Nordic. And seeing that we do multiple seasons at once in this house, it's never easy to choose a preferred color. And since I'm on stage quite a lot where it's more my content and my slides that need to speak than me, I try to do a very subdued, like, neutral, grayish, a lot of blacks and stuff like that. That is very simple. So it isn't me creating the noise, but the content. So I guess one of the regular creative people that visit us do think that I dress boring, but it's my choice in terms of content speaking more than me.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, no, I totally get that. Especially when you do color. You can't be extremely colorful yourself because you distract. Color distracts. It's still. Yeah, exactly. So you're going in a typical Danish. Typical Danish look.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: When I subdued black, grays, neutrals.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Yep.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. And some navy occasionally. Yeah. Thank you so much, Louise, for being part of the Color Authority podcast. I loved having you here.

Louise Byg Kongsholm: Welcome.

Judith van Vliet: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Color Authority podcast. Next month, we'll be talking to a new guest again on everything that is shaping 2026 and color. See you back very, very soon and have a colorful rest of your day.