TOTEM Times:
Insights & Trends
Feelings have no place in business, or do they?
A business is born with the objective of satisfying a need or a desire of a particular group of people. As a result, profits and growth are achieved. If, according to WHO data, one in six people worldwide feels lonely, and more than 850,000 people die each year from the effects of loneliness, since it […]
Mental health is also part of the brand
Not as rhetoric, but as culture. Many companies want to appear human to the outside world, but internally they continue to demand that their teams operate as if they never get tired, never doubt themselves, and never need to stop. And this contradiction inevitably surfaces. It shows in customer service. In the small details. In […]
There are hugs that are given without arms
Sometimes, a hug begins when someone stops interrupting. When they truly look at you. When they’re not thinking about what they’re going to say next while the other person is still talking. It also begins when we let someone finish a sentence, a fear, or even a silence. Listening can be one of the most […]
A city can have millions of inhabitants and still fail to make anyone feel like they belong
Because cities also build a brand. Not just when they launch a campaign, present a new identity, or seek to attract tourism and investment. They build it every day: in how you are welcomed, in how easy or difficult it is to get around, in how public spaces are cared for, in whether you can […]
Why is Fruit Attraction called Fruit Attraction if it’s a fruit and vegetable trade fair?
It might seem like a minor question. But for those of us who work with brands, it’s not. Because a single word has become the name under which practically an entire sector gathers. And this week we’ll see it again in Madrid, which will bring together more than 2,500 companies, 121,000 professionals from over 150 […]
Building Peace Through Business: How Great Brands Elevate the Market
When we think of peace, we often imagine agreements between countries, the end of a conflict, or grand diplomatic gestures. But peace can also appear in much more everyday places. Even in the marketplace. Because competing doesn’t have to mean confronting others. For years, we’ve associated business success with defeating the competition: gaining market share, […]
There are brands that write very well, but read very poorly
They read dashboards, percentages, clicks, reach, impressions, and conversions. But they don’t read people’s weariness. They don’t read the silence of a customer who stops returning. Or the discomfort of a team that no longer believes in the narrative. Nor a culture that changed before the committee approved the change. The problem isn’t a lack […]
There are hugs that don’t inaugurate anything
They simply bring us back. To a conversation that had been left unfinished, to a table that’s full again, to someone we haven’t seen in a while, to a part of ourselves that the noise had left a little distant. September asks us to return. But perhaps it’s not just about returning to work. It’s […]
September is often sold as a fresh start
In business, it often simply means returning to the list: pending meetings, paused campaigns, resurfacing objectives, and calendars filling up again far too quickly. But a brand doesn’t improve by resuming activity. It improves when it regains its purpose. After summer, there’s a common temptation: to act before thinking. To publish more. To launch more. […]
Brands don’t just collaborate. They create new worlds
For years, many brands viewed each other as enemy territory. My category, my audience, my tone, my space, my market. But something is changing. We’re seeing more and more brands collaborating to appear in places they couldn’t reach on their own. Fashion with food. Beauty with beverages. Luxury with urban culture. Retail with entertainment. Technology […]
