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Human-proof
your future

We unlock growth through human-centricity.

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Human
context circle™

Our Human Context Circle™ helps organizations make sense of the human context and navigate the world with clarity.

Why work
with us?

Understand the context

We provide a framework to make sense of the changing business context. This helps leaders and organizations to finally get their head around a world that can feel as though it’s on fire.

Unlock new sources of growth

We bring the outside in and the future forward by synthesizing insights from the human sciences and turning these into new growth opportunities.

Save Time, Speed up transformation

We provide a proven methodology and ready-to-apply strategies, saving time and speeding up transformation.

Turn complexity into clarity

We bring clarity in complex times. Our human context circle turns sociocultural trends into clear business strategies and guiding principles. No jargon. No trend fluff. Just clarity teams can rally behind and use to make decisions faster.

Be more human

Corporate language has a peculiar ability to vacuum all emotion out of the room. We help organizations be good at being human (again). This gives energy and momentum. It’s something that both employees and customers are yearning for.

Stay relevant

We enable you to anticipate changing needs & behaviour of people to ensure future relevance and competitiveness.

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More about TrendsActive

Challenges
we solve

In an uncertain and complex world, most leaders are constantly reacting to multiple unexpected crises. And yet, underneath all the global turmoil is a stable compass: humanity. Once understood and unlocked, it can provide clarity and new growth opportunities in a world where growth is harder to find.

We help organizations reconnect with humanity to navigate complex questions with human answers

"Develop our global
brand positioning."

"Reposition Donald
Duck"

"Help us to reconnect with the consumer by repositioning and rebranding"

"Develop our health care proposition"

"Pragmatic, human centric
segmentation"

"Packaging innovation
consultancy"

"Develop a consumer centric vision on the implementation of the smart grid"

"Create our leadership agenda to human-proof our leadership"

"Develop our global brand
theme"

"Enable us to make
our CSR strategy more
relevant for people"

"Enable our strategy by developing customer persona's"

"Provide insight in how our current marketing activities fit the needs of people"

"Enable us to create
the healthiest generation
of the world in 2040"

"Objectify our vision
towards 2030"

"Develop disruptive products
and services for specific
target groups"

"Develop & guide our yearly
innovation program"

"Identify and advice on how to respond to what vulnerable groups"

"Help us discover trends that fuel innovation and human-proof our product roadmap"

"Develop our executive
master program for the
school of governance"

"Create a strategic framework
for our partners on how
to attract and retain
generation Z"

"Develop a measurable and actionable consumer segmentation"

"Packaging innovation
consultancy"

"Create our leadership agenda to human-proof our leadership"

"Co-create our global brand positioning and guide us with the implementation"

"Reposition Donald Duck in a relevant way for todays consumers"

"Help us to reconnect with the consumer by repositioning and rebranding"

"Develop our health care proposition"

"Develop a consumer centric vision on the implemen­tation of the smart grid"

"Develop our global brand theme"

"Enable us to make our CSR strategy more relevant for people"

"Enable our segmentation strategy by developing customer persona's"

"Provide insight in how our current marketing activities fit the need of people"

"Enable us to create the healthiest generation of the world in 2024"

"Objectify our vision towards 2030"

"Develop disruptive products and services for specific target groups"

"Develop & guide our yearly innovation program"

"Identify and advice on how to respond to what vulnerable groups"

"Help us discover trends that fuel innovation and human-proof our product roadmap"

"Develop our executive master program for the school of governance"

"Create a strategic framework for our partners on how to attract and retain generation Z"

Areas of
application

Brand direction
& strategy

Brands that align with sociocultural trends.

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Marketing
& Communication

Advertising, content and creativity that sticks.

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Innovation

Products and services that are relevant and meaningful.

Explore more

Organization

Change & leadership development that works.

Explore more

Brand direction
& strategy

Brands that align with sociocultural trends.

Explore more

Marketing
& Communication

Advertising, content and creativity that sticks.

Explore more

Innovation

Products and services that are relevant and meaningful.

Explore more

Organization

Change & leadership development that works.

Explore more

Our
clients

What clients
say about us

“Trendsactive has enabled us to change in order to meet people’s needs. So we can continue to be successful in the future.”

Global Director Brand / Communication

“Working with Trendsactive feels like working with our nicest colleagues but with the indispensable expertise from the outside”

Commercial manager

“Trendsactive’s guiding principles turned out to be an excellent foundation for the activation of our new healthcare label”

Marketing manager

“Working with TrendsActive was a true revelation.”

Brand strategy manager

“I can’t tell you enough how pleased I am with the push that the TrendAnalysis has given to future developments.”

Grandmaster – Order of Freemasons in the Netherlands

“When we applied the principles of TrendsActive to our customer communication, we increased the response rate with 25%.”

Marketing and Communication manager

“Suddenly it all makes sense…”

Manager design and creation

“Trendsactive has enabled us to change in order to meet people’s needs. So we can continue to be successful in the future.”

Global Director Brand / Communication

“When we applied the principles of TrendsActive to our customer communication, we increased the response rate with 25%.”

Marketing and Communication manager

“Working with Trendsactive feels like working with our nicest colleagues but with the indispensable expertise from the outside”

Commercial manager

“Trendsactive’s guiding principles turned out to be an excellent foundation for the activation of our new healthcare label”

Marketing manager

“Working with TrendsActive was a true revelation.”

Brand strategy manager

“I can’t tell you enough how pleased I am with the push that the TrendAnalysis has given to future developments.”

Grandmaster – Order of Freemasons in the Netherlands

“Suddenly it all makes sense…”

Manager design and creation

Signals

In our blog, we track global events, interpreting their implications for brands and organizations based on sociocultural insights.

What artists can teach businesses about thinking differently

The value of human-made

01.09.2026

Together with BrandTrust, we recently worked on the positioning of a fine jeweller based in Vienna. As part of the project, we explored the

See all
Sign up for Signals

Reach out and
let's start a conversation!

Get in touch!

Reach out
and let's start
a conversation!

Get in touch!
Get in touch!

Stay relevant.
Sign up for our
bi-weekly Signals.

A bi-weekly newsletter in which we keep track of what’s going on in the world and translate based on our sociocultural knowledge, what this means to brands.

Trendsactive_blau

Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist

Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist

About

Our model

Signals

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Contact

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Tabea Höllger

Partner

Tabea Höllger specializes in brand positioning in saturated markets and measuring brand success. One of her key areas of expertise is the FMCG sector, where she focuses on topics such as product launches and the impact of packaging.

Tabea sees herself as a bridge-builder at the intersection of the FMCG market, sustainable brand management, and emerging technologies. She firmly believes that knowledge transfer between these three perspectives is essential for successfully addressing the challenges of the future.

In addition, Tabea has established herself over many years as an expert in creating engaging and memorable brand experiences. She helps companies inspire their employees to embrace and champion the brand strategy.

After gaining experience in market and advertising research and spending time abroad in the United States and the Philippines, the trained business psychologist returned to BrandTrust in 2016.

ChatGPT Image Jun 18, 2026, 01_27_05 PM

Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist

Kees his purpose is to help ambitious leaders and brands to human-proof their business. In 2003 he founded TrendsActive, a trend consultancy enabling brands to become more human centric.

Kees consults global brands like

  • Disney
  • The Coca-Cola Company
  • Asics
  • Discovery Channel
  • Swiss Life
  • Vodafone

and many more.

Next to being the founder of TrendsActive, he is also initiator of the first academic trend master for executives at the University of Utrecht and is initiator of various trend studies and white papers on subjects like trust, meaning, visual culture & generations.

Kees

Complex Society (EN)

TrendsActive X Telecom Gen Z (Full report)

TrendsActive X Telecom Gen Z (Teaser)

Four rules – How to better resonate with Gen Z

Complex society report

Kim Pillen

Consultant

Before Kim Pillen started as a trend consultant at TrendsActive, she worked for four years as a creative strategist at Dept. For brands such as Philips, bol.com, Beiersdorf, JBL, and the Consumers’ Association, she built (online) campaign, brand, and social media strategies. After four years, she decided that she wanted to better understand people and society in order to advise brands more effectively. That’s how she ended up at TrendsActive. Here, she can do what she loves most: digging into people’s needs and then working with brands to see how and where they can be relevant and meaningful.

Kim

Douwe Knijff

Researcher

Douwe is fascinated by how people work. With a background in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences (Bachelor) and Psychology (Master) and an analytical mind he tries figure out how societal shifts manifest themselves through social culture and human behaviour.

Douwe

Aljan De Boer

Keynote speaker

Aljan has been widely recognized as an inspiring professional speaker on the critical trends that will shape society in the decades to come. He works as the Head of Inspiration at TrendsActive, a trend consultancy from the Netherlands using social science to human-proof business decision for brands like

  • Disney
  • Vodafone
  • Hugo Boss
  • ASR
  • Rabobank

Next to his role at TrendsActive he is the Community Director at the Institute for Real Growth where he inspires and connects a global community of +400 CMOs.  

He has been on the board of the Dutch Platform of Innovative Marketing for almost a decade. Regular speaker and moderator for the Dutch Marketing Awards and 3 times winner of the best of MIE. 

Aljan

Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist

Kees his purpose is to help ambitious leaders and brands to human-proof their business. In 2003 he founded TrendsActive, a trend consultancy enabling brands to become more human centric.

Kees consults global brands like

  • Disney
  • The Coca-Cola Company
  • Asics
  • Discovery Channel
  • Swiss Life
  • Vodafone

and many more.

Next to being the founder of TrendsActive, he is also initiator of the first academic trend master for executives at the University of Utrecht and is initiator of various trend studies and white papers on subjects like trust, meaning, visual culture & generations.

Kees