Stratagem Weekly
Lindsay Foresight & Stratagem FAQ
10.01.25
Lindsay Foresight & Stratagem (LF&S) focuses on competitive advantage, which is the ability to consistently achieve your desired volume, revenue, and margins over the long term. A business strategy built on a strong competitive advantage can create customer satisfaction in ways that competitors cannot or will not replicate. This strategy can sustain itself well into the future, ideally leading to increased customer satisfaction, higher margins, and lasting benefits.
However, due to changing dynamics in the marketplace and the interactions among these dynamics, the factors contributing to competitive advantage have undergone significant changes in recent years.
A recent LF&S study revealed that many top executives and board directors are unaware of these changes and their potential effects.
Marsha Lindsay, LF&S CEO and Chief Analyst, announced the first set of 2025 research findings at The Indie Summit, an international marketing conference sponsored by thenetworkone in London Sept. 30, 2025. She explained that the company's research triggers a need for a new strategic plan in most companies.
What is the key takeaway from the LF&S study?
The factors driving competitive advantage have undergone fundamental changes.
Leading companies are now integrating three previously distinct strategies: business, marketing, and branding.
Business: purpose, revenue model, operations
Marketing: offerings, demand generation, margin
Brand: equity building, validation of customer self-concept
This powerful new business model is strategically designed and managed to accelerate the speed of data collection, insight generation, and customer emotional delight.
This model leads to network effects, such as the formation of social media communities and the use of the brand as a form of validation. For example, The Wall Street Journal pivoted from a traditional newspaper brand to a Lifestyle Ecosystem brand, featuring more lifestyle content such as food coverage, the "The Future of Everything Festival," and an increased social media presence, to reach younger patrons.
In this ecosystem, branding centers on validating the self-concept and aspirations of buyers and users. At The Wall Street Journal, for example, its ecosystem strives to help people achieve and live the American Dream.
Unfortunately, many executives and board directors are unaware of this shift and are unprepared to respond swiftly. Why is this the case?
They have not aligned their companies around a unified definition of competitive advantage.
They are unaware of the impact and interactions among these drivers. This gap gives their competitors—those who are at the forefront of change—a distinct advantage.
Why is this shift critical for Boards and C-suites?
Many leadership teams are still relying on outdated models, and LF&S has discovered that if they fail to recognize this shift, they risk:
Investing in obsolete strategies and misapplying AI technology.
Missing out on transformative efficiencies and innovations, such as using digitization and dynamic data in business, marketing, and brand strategies.
Falling behind competitors because leaders don't realize that the most effective way to launch and scale new offerings is 180 degrees different from even a few years ago.
Delaying consumer-centric practices thus gives digitized competitors who move fast an advantage.
What role does “branding” play in competitive strategy?
Branding is a concept that business leaders often have misunderstood and misapplied. Many regarded it as a communication tactic applied to what the company was already doing.
In reality, branding frames and delivers what a company does in a way that validates people's self-concept and enables their aspirations. Strategically, this means the brand becomes a core strategy that influences all aspects of the business, including revenue models, marketing, and other key areas. Effective branding involves a company positioning itself and its competitors in a way that benefits the company. It creates a mental image in the minds of current prospects and potential customers who may not choose to do business with a company until several years later. This image highlights the significant role business leaders play in the lives of prospective customers compared to alternatives.
To brand for advantage, companies must understand their buyers, users, and influencers exceptionally well. This understanding allows business leaders to create a branded ecosystem that validates customers’ self-concept and aspirations. Strong branding can desensitize customers to price and encourage them to recommend products or services to others. Moreover, it has the potential to create a flywheel effect that fosters value creation and accelerates growth through network effects.
What strategic mistakes are leaders making?
Treating AI as an advantage. The way many companies use it will only get them to parity.
Not emphasizing the psychological drivers of buyers and failing to organize the company in service to them.
Failing to recognize the convergence of business, brand, and marketing strategies into a cohesive dynamic strategy. Business leaders can achieve this by organizing as a digital ecosystem, which leverages the speed and efficiency available in that framework.
Not understanding or strategizing for the power of network effects.
Underestimating how rapidly categories are evolving and how value propositions may be weakening as a result.
What should Boards and executives prioritize now?
Ensure that everyone is aligned with a clear definition of competitive advantage.
Foster a shared understanding of the new drivers of competitive advantage, including their origins and implications for the organization and competitive landscape.
Evaluate the company’s current competitive advantage, considering these new drivers, and determine how to preserve it; explore opportunities for future advantage.
Develop a three-to five-year strategic plan that outlines the company’s approach to achieving future advantages and lists appropriate time horizons and metrics.
Include experts in buyer and user behavior in C-suites and on Boards.
Who is Marsha Lindsay, LF&S CEO and Chief Analyst?
Marsha Lindsay is:
an award-winning CEO, advisor, serial entrepreneur, keynote speaker, educator, and author.
a globally recognized expert in competitive advantage, with a focus on business, marketing, and branding components.
an analyst of marketplace dynamics that influence competitive advantage and employs critical thinking, insight, and problem-solving methods to help executives strategically plan for future advantages in the face of rapid change, economic volatility, and constant unpredictability.
Lindsay's counsel and presentations have engaged a wide range of clients, including:
Fortune 100 companies
Multinationals (including their Boards, C-suites, and chief marketing officers)
Venture capital-funded startups
Trade associations
Executives often share how her research and customized executive workshops have transformed their companies and industries.
Her expertise in navigating uncertainty, mitigating risk, and strategically accelerating growth and profitability is backed by four decades of scholarship in behavioral sciences, which examines what drives human decision-making, preferences, behavior, and behavioral economics.
She has three decades of experience researching marketing effectiveness while leading a nationally respected marketing consultancy. Her client roster has included renowned companies such as:
P&G
Samsung
21st Century Fox
PepsiCo
Green Bay Packers
Kohler
The University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics
Additionally, Lindsay has more than 30 years of experience in fiduciary and advisory roles, serving as a board director for privately held companies, multi-generational family businesses, nonprofits, and community organizations.
Her thought leadership has been published in prominent outlets, including
Fast Company
Forbes, Directors & Boards
Chief Executive
CEO World
In 2019, she published "The Growth Playbook for the Quantum Age of Marketing: How to Transform Companies, Brands, and Careers," based on her global study on the future of commerce, culture, and consumption, released by the 4As. For 25 years, she curated and led Brandworks University, an annual three-day MBA-level conference on marketing effectiveness attended by approximately 400 executives from around the world.
Lindsay has also contributed to global think tanks, including Zurich's Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute of Economic and Social Studies, and has been a featured speaker at numerous conferences in cities like London, New York, Los Angeles, and Beijing. Her speaking engagements include:
The World Business Forum (NYC)
Columbia University's Executive MBA program
The Communication University of China
SXSW
The Conference Board
The University of Wisconsin
To learn more about Lindsay, visit our Founder and CEO Page on the LF&S website.
How does LF&S conduct its research?
L&S's recent research, detailed in a study released in September 2025, involved an extensive review of existing literature, studies, and cases on competitive advantage. One-on-one interviews and group discussions with more than 300 individuals, including C-suite executives, board directors, and senior leaders from various organizations across assorted sizes, categories, and countries complemented the study.
Are you ready to rethink your competitive strategy? LF&S can help you explore the emerging marketplace dynamics that are influencing your category, expanding your competitive landscape, and requiring a new strategic plan—and a fresh approach to planning—to ensure your organization remains viable and profitable in the next three to five years.
For more information, please get in touch with Marsha Lindsay at 608-575-7070 or email her at Marsha@LFands.com.
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