Martin Lindstrom

Newsweek

Host of "Why Do We….?" – a new global show on NEWSWEEK – reveals why we do the things we do.

TIME

Under its Scientists and Thinkers category, TIME Magazine selected Lindstrom one of the most influential people in the world (along with Oprah Winfrey, Michele Obama, and Paul Krugman).

One of the World’s Most Influential People

Thinkers50

For ten years running, named one of the Top 50 Business Thinkers in the World by Thinkers50, a biennial ranking of the world's leading management experts sponsored by Harvard Business Review.

Top 50 Business Thinkers in the World

Lindstrom Company

Martin Lindstrom is one of the world's most respected consumer branding and culture experts and a pioneer in the fields of consumer psychology, innovation, business transformation, marketing, and neuro-marketing research. He uses his expertise to help his clients, strengthen company cultures while enhancing sales and productivity of the store/service/product brand, while developing a custom consumer/customer experience for their clients.

Branding & Culture Transformation Expert

Martin is a very accomplished writer as the New York Times Best-Selling Author of 'BrandWashed', 'Buyology' and 'Small Data. His is latest, much anticipated book, 'The Ministry Of Common Sense'. will launch January 2021.  Martin has also been featured as a contributing writer in Fast Company, Forbes and various other publications.

NYT Best-Selling Author and Featured Columnist

Martin Lindstrom is Founder of Lindstrom Company, his Branding Expert & Consulting Firm. He is also one of the world's most respected consumer branding experts and a pioneer in the fields of consumer psychology, marketing, and neuro-marketing research. He uses his expertise to help his clients, both individual and corporate, to enhance sales and productivity of the store/service/product brand, while developing a custom consumer/customer experience for their clients.

Founder & Owner of Lindstrom Company

Penguin Random House

The Ministry of Common Sense (Financial Times #1, Wall Street Journal #2)

Small Data (New York Times best-seller)

Brandwashed (Wall Street Journal best-seller)

Buyology (New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller)

Brand Sense (Wall Street Journal best-seller)

Brandchild

Clicks, Bricks & Brands

Brand Building on the Internet

Author of New York Times & Wall Street Journal best-selling books

#1 Branding & Culture Expert, New York Times Bestselling Author. TIME Magazine 100 most influential people in the world, Top 50 Business Thinker in the World 2015-2024 (Thinkers50). Financial Times & NEWSWEEK columnist.

Martin Lindstrom is the founder and chairman of Lindstrom Company, the world’s leading branding and culture transformation firm, operating across five continents and in more than 30 countries, serving a who’s who of Fortune 100 companies and Governments.

Martin has been featured as one of the world’s top 50 business thinkers for 10 consecutive years by the prestigious Thinkers50 list. TIME Magazine has named Martin one of the “World’s 100 Most Influential People.” He was recently selected as the #1 LinkedIn Top Voice US Influencer.
He has delivered keynote addresses to Google, UBER, META, Kraft Heinz, Disney, Amazon, LEGO, Unilever, Hallmark, Adobe, UBER, Mattel, the Coca-Cola Company, the World Business Forum (WOBI), TEDx, and the World Economic Forum.

Martin is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author of eight books translated into 60 languages. He’s coined such terms as neuromarketing, sensory marketing, texting, small data, and contextual marketing. Lindstrom’s writing has appeared in all major US publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. He is currently a columnist for Financial Times, NEWSWEEK, and Management Today.

The Wall Street Journal praised his book Brand Sense as “one of the five best marketing books ever published” and called his book Small Data “revolutionary.” TIME called his book Buyology “a breakthrough in branding,” and the Economist and Financial Times named his latest book, The Ministry of Common Sense, one of the top books of 2021.

Martin has made more than 20 appearances on NBC’s TODAY show and has also appeared in the late Morgan Spurlock’s movie The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, as well as several times on America’s Next Top Model. He is the host of the popular NEWSWEEK show "Why Do We...?" co-hosted with the legendary Liza Donnelly, the house cartoonist for CBS, the Oscars, and the Emmys. The show features legendary guests such as Tony Robbins, Suze Orman, Jake Tapper, and David Foster.

Click the "subscribe" button to learn more, go to MartinLindstrom.com - or check Martin out on Instagram: #LindstromCompany or on X: #MartinLindstrom

Martin Lindstrom is Founder of Lindstrom Company, his Branding Expert & Consulting Firm. He is also one of the world's most respected consumer branding experts and a pioneer in the fields of consumer psychology, marketing, and neuro-marketing research. He uses his expertise to help his clients, both individual and corporate, to enhance sales and productivity of the store/service/product brand, while developing a custom consumer/customer experience for their clients.


Common sense is shockingly rare.

I just spent 11 hours on a Lufthansa flight learning exactly HOW rare.

I was originally assigned seat 1A, but I promptly found out the seat was double-booked.

I was then reassigned to another seat just to realize…it was completely dysfunctional.

No working screen, no reading light.

An 11-hour flight suddenly became long, unproductive, and completely avoidable.

Even after 15 years as a HON Circle member, loyalty didn’t seem to matter. 

Apparently, revenue comes first. But common sense? Optional.

Welcome to the next installment of my common sense campaign. 

This became a huge lesson in human behavior and corporate priorities:

• Customer service was ignored.
• Process was prioritized over people.
• Loyalty was treated like a nice-to-have, not a must-have.

These tiny decisions don’t just make flights uncomfortable. 

They reveal your priorities, loud and clear, to the very people you rely on most.

Common sense is cheap. 

But its absence? It’ll destroy your customer’s trust.

Companies that forget these basics are sacrificing their most valuable assets: 

Respect and repeat business.

#1 Branding & Culture Expert, New York Times Bestselling Author. TIME Magazine 100 most influential people in the world, Top 50 Business Thinker in the World 2015-2026 (Thinkers50). Financial Times & NEWSWEEK columnist.

When I walked into my room at LANA - a Dorchester Collection hotel in Dubai, I didn’t expect to be transported back to childhood.

On the table sat a small scene that did exactly that.

For a moment, I wasn’t overlooking Dubai. 

I was in my backyard in Denmark, building entire universes, brick by brick, long before I knew those moments would shape my future.

What struck me wasn’t the gift itself, but the thought behind it.

Someone had remembered the small stories,
the tiny clues that reveal who we really are.

They noticed the details most people overlook. 
And in doing so, they transformed a simple check-in into something meaningful, personal, human.

In a world where so many experiences feel automated, this one felt handcrafted.

It’s a beautiful reminder of what happens when we notice the little things. 

Those little things often create the memories people never forget.

And for that, I’m grateful.

We love a good hero story.

It makes great cinema.

But it makes a terrible business strategy.

Every time you cheer for the “savior” on your team,
You’re rewarding a broken system.

Late-night rescues.
Weekend warriors.
The one person who “always pulls it off.”

Celebrating the hero hides the real problem, the system itself is failing.

When that person leaves or burns out, everything collapses.

Glorifying chaos creates a dependency disguised as hustle culture.

So, stop cheering when one person saves the day again. 

Build a team that doesn’t need saving.

Your culture doesn’t collapse overnight.
It erodes quietly, every Friday at 4:59 PM.

Monday: “We’re a purpose-driven company.”
Friday: “We’ll deal with that next quarter.”

That’s how it starts.

Not with one big failure, but a thousand small choices you avoided:

👎🏻 Habits you ignore.
👎🏻 “Just this once” patterns you justify.
👎🏻 Small compromises,
👎🏻 Delayed conversations,
👎🏻 And the things you meant to fix but didn’t.

Because every time you let something slide,
You teach your team what really matters.

What you allow becomes normal.
And what becomes normal becomes who you are.

If you want to fix your culture, don’t rewrite your words.
Rewrite your actions.

Your brand could be worshipped. Literally.

I’m not exaggerating.

When people feel emotionally connected to a brand, the same brain regions light up as when they pray.

Your marketing campaigns aren’t just ads, they’re potential rituals.
Your customers aren’t just buyers, they’re potential believers.

Most brands are boring.
They pitch. They make noise. They vanish.

And then they wonder why no one remembers their name the next morning.

But the great ones?
🧠 They become part of someone’s life.
🧠 They evoke ritual.
🧠 Create identity.
🧠 Forge community.

I break down the 3 science-backed pillars behind “brand worship”:

Belief. Ritual. Community.

Here’s what science (and 25 years of brand anthropology) has taught me 👇🏻

How To Build a Brand To Become a Ritual

Love starts small, a glance, a moment, a feeling that says “I see you.”

It sounds dramatic, but brands are no different.

Every time a customer sees your brand and its small data details,

They’re subconsciously asking one thing:
“Can I trust you to be consistent?”

That’s what creates attachment.

And attachment, repeated over time, becomes loyalty.

Real loyalty isn’t built through discounts or fancy slogans.

It’s built the same way love is: through emotion, attention, and trust.

So if you want loyalty,
Stop thinking like a marketer.

Start thinking like someone falling in love.

I bet you just saved your 100th motivational quote today from your favorite influencer.

Pinned it. Scrolled on and felt inspired for two minutes.

People don’t need motivation.

They need permission to start, fail, and act before they’re ready.

Motivation is cheap. Action is expensive.
Motivation is fleeting. Permission is powerful.

People don’t want inspiration, they want permission to stop talking, stop planning, and start doing.

Collecting quotes won’t change anything.

Acting will.

Permission isn’t given. You take it.

It doesn’t come from a poster, a quote, or even a mentor.
It comes from realizing, often for yourself, that it’s okay to step forward.

In every breakthrough I’ve studied with brands and leaders, the magic happens when someone finally gives themselves the green light.

The question is… are you ready to take it?

The Em Dash isn’t the enemy. 

It’s proof we’re still human.

Last week, a school administrator was accused of using AI, 
All because their email contained em dashes.

The humble em dash, a centuries-old punctuation mark, is now considered a dead giveaway that a machine wrote your message.

We’ve reached a point where humanity is being judged by punctuation.

Professional writers have always loved em dashes. 

They’re emotional. 
They’re rhythmic. 
They’re messy. 
They’re wonderfully human.

Emily Dickinson breathed through them.
Virginia Woolf thought of them.
David Foster Wallace wandered inside them.

AI didn’t invent the em dash.
AI learned it from us.

And that’s the part we often forget:
Large language models don’t create cultures, they absorb them.

In a world where AI writes the perfectly optimized sentence and predictable message, 

The imperfect details become the new differentiator.

Brands often ask me how to stay human in an increasingly automated world.

The answer isn’t more polish.

It’s more texture.

If AI is the great equalizer, then humanity becomes the competitive edge.

So, if using an em dash now counts as a rebellion against artificial intelligence?

Well, maybe we need more rebels.

December exposes the truth:

90% of purchases are driven by emotion, not logic.

Every year, brands freak out.
While consumers are busy repeating the same rituals for 20 years.

They’re busy lighting the same tree.
Playing the same playlist.
Baking the same cookie that their grandmother perfected in 1974.

The holidays aren’t a shopping season.
They’re a behavioral pattern.

Brands = sell stuff.
People = rituals, nostalgia, belonging.

Stop chasing transactions.
Embed yourself in the moments people will remember for decades.

Because the brands that win aren’t the ones people notice, they’re the ones people invite into their traditions.

For those who celebrate, Thanksgiving is meant to be a holiday about gratitude. 
But if you look closely, most don’t really mean it.

Gratitude in 2025 looks a lot like performance.
We say “thank you,” but rarely feel it.
We’re thankful for time spent with family but checking emails under the table.
Thankful for what you have but already hunting for Black Friday deals.

We’re living in an age where even gratitude has become transactional.

The more we perform gratitude, the less we feel it.

Because genuine gratitude doesn’t live on a screen.
It lives in noticing. In pausing. In being present.

So this Thanksgiving, don’t post it.
Live it.

The algorithm might not notice, but your humanity will.

85% of brands will fail to stand out in 2026.


Here are my top predictions for the ones that will survive.

AI won’t replace creativity, 
It will expose every brand that isn’t prepared.

Hyper-personalization, AI-powered search, autonomous agents, and measurable authenticity will separate winners from losers.

Here’s what to know if you want to win 2026:
💡How small data + AI predicts customer behavior before they even know it
💡Why trust backed by proof is more powerful than flashy marketing
💡How co-creation and micro-communities turn engagement into growth
💡Why agility beats size in a hyper-fast world

Which trend will your brand act on first?

⚡ “FLASH SALE! 3 HOURS LEFT”
And suddenly, logic leaves the room.

🧠 Black Friday isn’t a sale.
It’s a social experiment.

We say we want “value.”
But what we really want is validation that we didn’t miss out.

So we click. Fast.
Because “3 hours left” feels safer than “think about it.”

That’s not value.
That’s velocity.

Brands know this.

Most people aren’t underqualified. They’re just undifferentiated.

They don’t hate their job. They hate how replaceable they feel in it.
They don’t hate their boss. They hate that they need permission.
They don’t hate Mondays. They hate being invisible.

So no, you don’t need to manifest or meditate. You need positioning.

Figure out what you’re the best at.

Say it clearly.
Say it often.
Say it in places that decision-makers actually see.

You’re not stuck. You’re just too generic.

Take inventory, and then find ways to fix it.

The Marlboro cowboy without a logo was twice as powerful as the one with it.
Read that again. TWICE.

❌ No logo.
❌ No tagline.

Just a silhouette. And yet, it sold millions.

Not because of the product, I’m proudly anti-smoking, but because of the identity wrapped around it.

One character.
One feeling.
One mirror of who people wished they could be.

Freedom.
Rebellion.
Masculinity.

People didn’t see a cigarette.
They saw a story.
A feeling.
A version of themselves they wanted to inhabit.

That’s the power of Small Data: the tiny, human cues that hit before the brain even thinks.

Great brands don’t shout.
They leave space.
Space for us to fill in the story ourselves.

Brands don’t live in logos.
They live in what we feel when they’re gone.

P.S. In Buyology, I spent years helping change global cigarette health warnings.
Sometimes the most powerful lessons come from industries we don’t admire.

Mariboro Country - A Lindstrom Case

Most leadership mistakes don’t start loud.

They start with silence.

A gut feeling ignored, a conversation postponed, or a decision that felt easier in the moment.

Until one day, you realize:

It wasn’t a glitch. It was the culture.

What do you think is the most expensive mistake a leader can make?

What’s the most expensive leadership mistake?

The author can see how you vote. Learn more

Over the last few days, we unpacked the story behind Bright Bites.

Where some brands may expect clicks, likes, even sales,

Bright Bites wanted behavioral proof.

Parents wrote:
“My kid asked for broccoli.”
“For the first time, dinner isn’t a battle.”

That’s when it clicked:
They didn’t sell snacks.
They built trust.

Branding, like parenting, isn’t about control.
💛 It’s nudging behavior.
💛 Rewarding progress, not perfection.
💛 Understanding what moves people, quietly.

This is the lesson for brands:
💡 Lead with empathy, not ego.
💡 Quiet influence lasts longer than short-lived attention.

Bright Bites didn’t just change what kids eat.
It changed how families feel about food.

And that’s the kind of transformation the best brands are built on.

Most brands look great in a pitch deck.

But guess what? Great brands aren’t built in campaigns.

They’re built in quiet decisions. Ones made when it’s harder, and when there is no playbook.

So tell me: what’s the real test of a brand?

What’s the real test of a great brand?


AI is already taking over hiring, healthcare, and financial decisions. 

But when AI makes a mistake, who is responsible?

Have you had a situation where AI accountability became an issue? 

Share it 👇

As AI tools make decisions in business and society, who should be accountable when things go wrong?

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