I think about people, brands, and what's actually true.
About Me
I'm Pedro. Based in Portugal. Father of four boys, which is as loud and chaotic and good as it sounds. Married to someone who makes me feel it every day — not just loved, but known.
I've been skating since I was a kid. Not as a sport — more as a way of seeing things. You spend enough time trying to land something that doesn't come easy and you stop caring about looking good while you figure it out.
My faith shapes how I move through most things. I try to be honest, show up for people, and not take myself too seriously.
I care about what's real more than what looks right.
Professional Me
I just love marketing. Not the kind that fills space, the kind that's honest about what a brand actually is and says it plainly.
I run one system wherever I go: observe how people actually decide, not how they say they decide, engineer the pull on purpose, filter for what will live before what will look good, then repeat and get sharper. Trust is the currency underneath all of it. Taste without a system is decoration, a system without trust is manipulation. I ran this loop selling surf and skate brands for sixteen years. I run it now leading marketing at a company that builds the kind of software that can't fail. Different product, same job.
I watch what people do, not what they say, and I trust a track record over a room that goes quiet the moment someone charismatic walks in. That habit came from years of reading customers on a shop floor before it ever showed up in a strategy deck. It matters more now than ever — the tools got fast, so producing is nearly free, which means judgment is the only thing left that's actually scarce. Knowing what's true, what's worth saying, what deserves the company's name on it.
Most of my career has been in-house, building teams, shaping positioning, running campaigns from strategy to execution. The brands I connect with most are the ones that know what they are and don't need to shout about it.
Brands I've Worked With
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Thoughts on culture, identity, leadership, and the honest things in life.
May 2026
You Came for the Lifestyle — Stay for the Culture
On welcoming others while holding on to what makes Portugal, Portugal.
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May 2026
Me. Amplified.
On being amplified by AI instead of replaced by it — and the twenty minutes that make the difference.
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2023
The Chasm — Why Most New Things Don't Make It
Geoffrey Moore's 1991 theory is still the sharpest lens we have for reading hype.
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2023
Elemental — How the World Should Be
A Disney film that's really about race, love, tradition, and the world we're trying to build.
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2017
Brands That Get the Street
The Lidl phenomenon, sticker culture, and why the Street has always been ahead of the boardroom.
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May 2026
Me. Amplified.
I had a moment last week that I keep coming back to.
Asking for a competitive analysis in two minutes later I had six pages. Solid, structured, mostly right. A year ago that would have been two afternoons of work for someone on my team. I read it. I nodded. I almost forwarded it.
Then I stopped. Because I hadn't actually thought about the question yet. The model had thought about it for me. And I was about to send its thinking forward with my name on it. I closed the doc. Sat with the question for twenty minutes. Came back with a different angle, used the six pages as raw material, and shipped something that was actually mine.
That twenty minutes is what this post is about.
I'm faster than I've ever been. Sharper on the good days. The amount of ground I can cover in a morning would have sounded ridiculous to me three years ago.
If you're not using it yet, start. This isn't a debate anymore. The gap between people who use them well and people who don't is going to be the gap that defines our decade.
But there's a second gap forming, and I think it matters more. The gap inside the people who do use them.
Some people are using AI to think better. Some people are using AI to stop thinking. The output looks similar from the outside. For a while.
I see senior people on calls reading from drafts they clearly haven't read. I see decks shipped with a logic the presenter can't defend. I see strategy memos that sound smart and fall apart the moment you ask a follow-up question.
This is new. It didn't happen at this scale before, because before, you couldn't fake the work. Now you can. For a few weeks. Maybe a quarter. Then... I'm trying very hard not to be in that group. Some days I am anyway.
Augmentation, the way I mean it.
When I say I'm amplified, I don't mean the tool is doing my job. I mean, the tool is removing the parts of my job that were never the point. The formatting. The first draft. The competitive scan. The meeting summary. All of that, take it. I never wanted to be the person doing that anyway.
What I do want to be is the person who still decides. What the strategy actually is. Whether this campaign should exist. Whether the answer the model gave is the answer, or just the average of what's been said before.
The tool can't do that part. Not because it's not smart. Because the deciding has to be done by someone who carries the consequence. And the model doesn't carry consequence. We do.
A question I'd ask you — not which model you're using, not which agents you've built — when was the last time the tool gave you an answer and you sat with it long enough to disagree?
If the answer is recently, you're probably amplifying yourself the right way. If the answer is you can't remember, that's worth a second look. I had to ask myself this last week. I didn't love the answer.
What I'm trying to say — amplified, yes. Fast, sharp, all of it. But still the person doing the deciding. Still critical of what comes back. Still willing to throw out six pages and start from a different angle, because the angle is mine and the six pages weren't.
That's the version of this I'm trying to be. Not always. Not perfectly. But more than before.
2023
The Chasm — Why Most New Things Don't Make It
In 1991, Geoffrey Moore laid out something simple but sharp. In Crossing the Chasm, he argued that every technology goes through five stages of adoption: Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards. The interesting part isn't the curve. It's the gap between Early Adopters and the Early Majority — the chasm — where most promising technologies quietly die.
Three decades later, the theory holds. If anything, it's more relevant now. The pace of new things arriving has gotten faster, and so has the noise around them. Every year brings something that's supposed to change everything. Blockchain. The metaverse. NFTs. Web3. AI. Some of these will cross. Most won't.
The problem isn't the technology. It's the gap between the people who love new things for their own sake and the people who need a real reason to adopt something. Early Adopters run toward the unknown. The Early Majority waits for proof. Between those two groups, there's a lot of silence where hype used to be.
AI is the clearest current example. The people building it are certain it will restructure how humans work and think. That may be true. But the Early Majority — the accountant in Braga, the teacher in Setúbal, the sales manager in Porto — they're not on the same timeline. They're waiting to see what actually works, not what theoretically could.
That gap is still the chasm.
What changes isn't the structure — it's the speed. New things appear faster. The hype cycle spins faster. The gap between announcement and abandonment is shorter. Which means there are more chasms now, not fewer.
Being early is not the same as being right. And being late is not the same as being wrong. The Early Majority builds the world that survives after the noise settles. They're not slow — they're just waiting for the real thing.
Some of us want to explore. Some of us want to solve problems. Both are fine. The chasm is just the distance between them.
Published 2017
Brands That Get the Street
I've been talking about this topic for a long time — always in an academic or professional context, always tied to something specific. But I'd never found the right hook to write about the Street and the impact I think it has on trends.
The Street, in the fullness of what it means, has always fascinated me. The colours, the smells, the architecture, the general disorder, the speed, the sounds, the people — and what those people are and appear to be. An endless stream of stimuli.
Despite being an attentive but distracted observer, it was always clear to me that it's there, in that environment, that the next steps happen. Where trends are born. Where cultural evolution takes place — generated by the people who make the street, Street.
As just an observer with some critical eye, I believe that just as there's an inner pull for so many people toward a certain quality of life away from urban spaces, there's a whole other group of individuals for whom the street isn't just where they feel good — it's where they become something. Where they create and leave deep marks and define what comes next.
These temporal definitions, these inexplicable motivations, combined with my profession, have led me to study this phenomenon. And with these premises, I cross Brands with the Street as a way of sharing what I see.
In recent weeks, Portugal was confused by the Lidl wearable phenomenon. Suddenly I saw people — including some professional peers — offering enormous academic theories to explain what was happening. And a whole other set of off-the-cuff opinions, most focused on aesthetics (or the lack of them).
Obviously there are academic nuances in the buzz created, and there's a lot of work behind such success. But it has little to do with experimentation and even less with luck — which I also saw written in several places.
Everything that was said defines the how. But the real question is the why.
Let me start by framing the use of brand logos as accessories or statements. Something that began in the 80s had its most visible expression in stickers. Often without any criteria, using these objects became a pop decorative expression — and it has stayed that way ever since.
Many brands included stickers in their merchandising portfolio and, being objects with an interesting aesthetic regardless of what they represent, street people started using them in increasingly creative ways.
Fast forward to today — nothing has changed. Street people, creative, trend-setters in their own right, have continued to work with the most varied objects, ideas, and artefacts they find in daily life, turning them into critical elements of cultural development.
This is undeniable, and brands understood that things happen on the Street — on the Street and with Street people. Lidl wasn't the first and won't be the last. Sumol, Moche in Portugal. Ikea, Tesco among others worldwide. They've all explored and tested their urban cultural potential.
Even so, the Lidl phenomenon isn't new. Over the last ten years the German brand has not only built enormous brand value through its consumer — it has known how to test itself with the individual most critical to the success of any brand today: Street people.
This is clear from the aesthetic tests they've been running — the Kitsch element is highly valued today — having the right people understanding these phenomena and exposing its popular strength very deliberately over the last decade.
The product that triggered everything was made available as a test in Germany in 2013. By 2015, all of Latin America had sold out this limited edition. In Portugal, despite only arriving in the last two weeks, Ricardo Passaporte — a renowned Portuguese experimental artist with international recognition — had already been playing with the Lidl logo, exploring its visual, deconstructive and experimental potential.
The examples of brands that have moved closer to the Street to elevate their relevance to an increasingly critical audience are too many to count. But they will continue to be very few given how much it matters.
I've said this before and I still believe it: more than an infinite number of irrelevant lectures in marketing, communications, design, and fashion courses — in all courses that prepare professionals to work alongside brands — there should be disciplines in Contemporary History and Urban Culture.
The best profiles will be those who understand urban phenomena without judging them. Not those who continue seeking only corporate environments.
Just ask Lidl, whose brand director is Luís Lobato Almeida — someone with a path built on the brand side, but also on the supplier side. That gives him the ability to see horizontally.
It gives him Street.
May 2026
You Came for the Lifestyle — Stay for the Culture
Especially among those who have chosen Portugal as their new home. If there's someone who genuinely enjoys welcoming others, it's me. I'm thrilled to see so many people choosing Portugal as home. I'm sure my children will grow up richer by living in an environment shaped by different cultures — and that's precisely why I'm writing these words.
Yesterday, I came across a post by a foreign entrepreneur living in Portugal. Its tone felt somewhat arrogant — even if, at its core, it was a cry of frustration about bureaucracy and the difficulties of doing business here. And today, my wife witnessed a rude and arrogant attitude from an expat who puts us — Portuguese — at a low level.
I have no illusions about our challenges. I speak about them often. But there are two things I feel compelled to make clear to those who choose Portugal.
Many are drawn here for three main reasons: weather, safety, and cost of living. That's honest and fair. But naturally, we have our own culture — typical of a Southern European country with over 900 years of history. We live at a slower pace. We accept delays as part of life. We often confuse agility with improvisation. These traits, which many perceive as flaws, are part of who we are. And indirectly, they help create the paradise that attracts so many.
Yes, we have problems. And yes, we want to improve. But improving doesn't mean losing what makes us Portuguese.
Portugal should not become a tropical version of wealthier nations, accommodating the habits of those coming from abroad. Because if we do that, we stop being Portugal. And here's the irony: it's precisely these cultural differences — which sometimes feel like barriers — that allow many to arrive, succeed, and put down roots here.
However, those same nuances can also open the door to behaviours that would rarely be tolerated in the countries from which many expatriates come — especially in Northern Europe or the United States. Arrogant attitudes, broken rules, a lack of basic courtesy — these things sometimes happen here with a lightness that likely wouldn't be accepted back home.
Respecting a country also means respecting its culture and traditions. And above all, understanding that culture doesn't exist to serve anyone — it exists because it has been lived, day after day, for generations.
2023
Elemental — How the World Should Be
This weekend, I dove into Disney's magical world watching Elemental. My kids had already seen it and liked it well enough — though they probably preferred the Ninja Turtles — but I have to confess this film touched me deeply, far beyond what I expected.
From the flawless graphics that Disney/Pixar (Steve Jobs immortal) has got us used to, to the creative story where the elements come to life and coexist — everything in the film captivated me. And although it might seem, at first glance, like a typical animation aimed at younger audiences — which makes commercial sense — don't be fooled. Elemental is much more than that. It tackles a set of current issues that affect us and our children in a very light way, but also challenges us to grow.
Love, that universal force, forms the backbone of the story. But more than a simple cliché, the film addresses things as relevant as differences, race, segregation, and the complex dynamics between rich and poor. It also looks at knowledge, envy, globalisation, and the importance of tearing down the borders that limit us. The vision of the future as an opportunity, not a burden, is inspiring. And tradition? Tradition is treated as a guide of values, not as a weight disconnected from our reality.
We live in times when we question the world and the way we inhabit it together. And it's reassuring to see, through examples like this film, that it's possible to aspire to a better world. A world where understanding and sharing prevail. I really want this world.
I remember a line said by Ember's father: "The dream wasn't the shop — the dream was you." A powerful reminder that real dreams live in each of us and in the way we choose to live, regardless of circumstances.
After watching the film I came across the documentary about Peter Sohn, the director. South Korean, son of immigrants who moved to the US and opened a grocery store in New York. The film isn't just inspired by that story — it is that story. Ember's family, the shop, the weight of a father's sacrifice, the tension between honouring where you come from and becoming who you need to be. He lived it. Then made it into something millions of people watched without knowing any of that.
That detail changes everything. It's one thing to make a film about immigration and belonging. It's another to make it because you had no other way to tell your own story. That's what makes it land differently. And honestly, it made me respect it even more.
