A few quick facts about John
Name: John Severin
Age: 37
Lives: In Gamla Herrgården in Falun with partner and daughter
Current Status: New on the job for a little over a week
What did you do before starting at Dalarna Digital?
I am fundamentally a trained economist but have spent the last ten years (the majority of my professional life) at the media and communications agency OMD. OMD is the single largest agency within the world’s largest media agency network, Omnicom Media, with around a hundred employees in Sweden, several thousand globally, and a long list of Sweden’s and the world’s largest brands on its client roster.
Over the years, I have held many roles—from specialist in paid media, to business developer and client manager—but for the last two to three years, I was responsible for strategy and new business. In that role, I had an overarching responsibility for formulating and packaging our strategic offering (with a focus on brand and media strategy), actively working as the strategic lead for multiple clients, and managing new business (in practice, pitching and procurement for new clients).
Over the years, I have had the privilege of working with everything from major Swedish brands like Svenska Spel, Klarna, Postnord, and Vattenfall, to global giants like Disney, Carlsberg, and L’Oréal.
What is your role at Dalarna Digital and what will you contribute?
I will be stepping into the role of Senior Business & Strategy Lead. This role includes client responsibility for selected key accounts, and actively working to develop and refine Dalarna Digital’s customer offering and create new business opportunities.
Given my background, a natural part of this will be to strengthen DD’s digital forefront with a broader brand and business strategic perspective for our clients. But an equally central part of the role is, together with the rest of the team, ensuring that we keep pace with our present time. This requires being able to manage two simultaneous priorities: on one hand, agentic AI, vibe coding, and autonomous systems will be central to future-proofing our business and our clients’ businesses.
On the other hand, the importance of client relationships, human intuition, and genuine feeling will remain absolutely crucial. I believe and hope that I have a capability to see the potential in these quite complex processes, and the ambition, of course, is to find ways to apply it in our operations in a way that both future-proofs our offering and maximizes value for our clients.
What made you apply to Dalarna Digital?
A combination of many things, but more than anything, I was drawn to Daniel as a person and his approach to running a company. We met by chance in a private setting a few months ago, and I immediately liked his energy. When it was time for me to look for a new role and we started talking about work, I think we both felt relatively quickly that we clicked very well there too, and that we would be able to complement each other effectively.
Then, of course, there are purely professional aspects that are also exciting. I come from a “large corporate context,” both in terms of previous employers and their typical clients, so I am really looking forward to working more locally, closer to the customer, and taking a slightly broader approach to the client’s challenges than I might have done previously when I was part of a larger machine.
During my first weeks, it has also become obvious how fast-moving DD is compared to the large companies I normally dealt with. Now sharing a desk with truly sharp coders (which is new to me), it’s also clear that it is possible to “build the car while it’s running,” and the pace of innovation I’ve experienced here is a completely new level compared to what I’m used to. Without saying too much, I can hint that we already have very (!) exciting things underway that have gone from concept to execution in just a few weeks!
Which brand strategy do you think is most underestimated right now – and why?
There is an enormous underestimation in the business community generally regarding the very value of working with brand strategy at all. There are countless pages of research (as well as actual stock prices; just look at the brand strength of most of Sweden’s and the world’s largest companies) that all state the brand is an absolutely central part of driving growth.
At the same time, many companies (not to say most) rely entirely on their product or service alone being enough to generate growth over time. That’s where many go wrong, and I believe everyone, without exception, benefits long-term from taking a serious strategic grip on their brand. This is especially true in an era where the advance of AI will increase both productivity and competition across many industries; when “everyone can do everything,” those with a strong and authentic brand will be best equipped in the increasingly tough battle for customer trust. Despite AI and disruptive innovation—most people still make decisions on emotional rather than rational grounds, which is easy to forget in the pursuit of technical edge and short-term gains.
If you could take over a brand for a week, which one would you choose and what would you do?
The North Face or Black Diamond! Firstly, because as a passionate climber, I love their products, but also because I think they do a fantastic job with how they use brand building as a central part of driving the business forward.
They are both masters of storytelling and of using ambassadors to build brand and credibility around their products. Look, for example, at the short film where Alex Honnold climbs El Sendero Luminoso – a true masterclass in powerful storytelling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phl82D57P58
If I could put on the Chief Marketing Officer hat for a week, I would gladly spend it in Yosemite filming a similar production!
What is the most common mistake companies make when working with new business?
I think many rely too much on the product or service they offer to do the job by itself, but with very few exceptions, there is likely a competitor with an equivalent offering.
After 10+ years at an agency and countless pitches, my experience is that it is almost invariably the relationship and the “people behind the delivery” that decide the outcome. In other words—relationship and trust capital are everything to win new and grow existing clients. I know this view is shared by the rest of the team at DD, which feels like a great foundation for us to continue doing great things moving forward!
Which trend in business development or marketing do you think is most overrated right now?
The answer to that question is, of course, a given: AI. Many people’s immediate thought is likely that it’s because it’s “cool and exciting” with buzzwords like vibe coding, multimodal AI, and GEO. While that’s also true, I primarily think from a larger perspective. What I see AI doing right now, beyond trend reports and billion-dollar acquisitions, is that it is democratizing a long list of services and processes that were previously reserved for a limited group with a large enough wallet.
The barriers to, for example, building an attractive and profit-generating digital presence have decreased enormously compared to just a few years ago, and this allows a completely new type of company to take its place in the digital space. As entry costs decrease, theoretically a hair salon in Rättvik has the same prerequisites as any large company to succeed in the digital realm. However, success, of course, still requires a strong understanding of business and brand, basic technical competence, and a solid technical infrastructure. In other words: your “how” will largely be replaceable by AI, but your “why” remains human to the highest degree.
From a personal and more existential perspective, I find this to be an incredibly exciting development because it will hopefully give more local and smaller companies the opportunity to remain competitive, which in the long run contributes to Dalarna being a good place to live, thrive, and grow in the future as well.
Do you have a ‘go-to’ method for quickly understanding a new client or market?
Of course, there is great value in classic “desktop research”—from trying to understand an industry based on trend reports, industry news, and macro indicators, to deep-diving through, for example, the client’s own website, annual reports, or other relevant data. This type of research is a good example of where I personally see the use of AI becoming an invaluable assistant in my daily work.
Something I also see as a given, but which I believe is too often overlooked, is that to understand the business, you must understand the target audience; who are the people buying the product/service, what are the driving forces behind a purchase decision, what environments do they move in (digitally and physically), and what types of messages are they most receptive to?
But, at the end of the day, the client’s own perspective and needs are perhaps the single most important source of insight. However, I dare to stick my neck out and say that the client is not always right, or at least that they do not necessarily know what they actually need themselves. I have great respect for the individual’s industry, company, and product knowledge and believe that collaboration and dialogue are absolutely central to achieving great things together.
Nerd Question: Which case (campaign/strategy) do you return to for inspiration?
I have had the privilege of working with many major brands over the years, some of which stand out a bit extra. Klarna is one example—it’s incredibly inspiring how they saw the brand as a central part of their business strategy right from the start. Their now-classic “Smooth Dogg” campaign (where they hired Snoop Dogg as a brand ambassador) was likely one of the most expensive, but also one of the most commercially successful campaigns in modern Swedish marketing history.
They also automated many internal processes with the help of AI several years ago. McDonald’s is another example of a brand that has, over time, shifted from extremely product-focused and tactical communication to more brand-building and purpose-driven storytelling. Common to both is that they dared to let the brand be the driving force on the journey toward increased business growth, and the growth was not slow in coming.
From a more local perspective, there are many examples of Dalarna-based companies that have done really well; Morakniv and Falu Rödfärg, who have over time managed to position themselves as equally obvious fixtures in the Swedish national psyche as herring at midsummer (few brands, by the way, have succeeded in the feat of becoming a noun in daily vocabulary—they are up there with Post-It, Styrofoam, and a few others). Restaurang Rökbacken, which has built an impressive business and position based on how they themselves want a restaurant experience to be, without regard to what others think. Sacci, which in a forward-leaning and inspiring way has created a modern and innovative brand, without overshadowing its proud history. There are, of course, many, many more.
Final thoughts?
It feels great to finally be in place at DD, and I look forward to meeting as many of our clients as possible in the near future!
As someone relatively new to town, you can expect to see me at various networking meetings and events going forward, so don’t hesitate to grab me if you want to talk trends, marketing, or get some new perspectives on how you can elevate your brand to the next level (I’m the tall guy with a mustache and a cap..).
