Brand Consultant and Marketing Specialist.
With more than 20 years across brand strategy, creative direction, and marketing/PR, I help lifestyle, outdoor, and sports brands grow by understanding people and turning that understanding into strategy, concepts, and communication that actually work.
Fredrik Ekström
Creative Strategist & Marketing Specialist
Who I Ususally Work With
I primarily work with progressive brands and organizations within outdoor, fashion, sustainability, sports, travel, and technology.
Typically these are brands that want to
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Better understand consumers
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Strengthen their market position
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Create more distinctive communication
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Build stronger concepts and campaigns
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Increase brand relevance and demand
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Connect strategy with hands-on execution
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Activate a brand or product
From global brands to start-ups, my focus is the same: helping brands become more meaningful, more memorable, and commercially effective.
"My background spans more than 20 years in agencies and senior brand leadership roles, giving me a practical understanding of how brands, teams, and business challenges look from both sides of the table."
Consumer Insights & Trend Intelligence
Through the Future Series and my own Pattern Model, I help brands uncover the cultural shifts, values, and motivations shaping future consumer behavior, categories, and opportunities.
By combining cultural understanding with consumer research and market intelligence, I help identify opportunities that create relevance, strengthen positioning, and unlock future growth.
Services include:
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Consumer Research & Archetypes
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Consumer Mapping & Opportunities
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Sustainability & Outdoor Insights
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Trend Understanding & Proprietary Reports
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Insights & Consumer Sprints
Brand Strategy & Positioning
I help brands create strategic clarity by defining positioning, audiences, messaging, and long-term direction to win in the market.
The objective is to build a strong consumer-aligned foundation that guides decision-making across brand, marketing, communication, product, partnerships, and sales.
Services include:
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Winning Game Strategies
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Brand Positioning
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Brand Platforms/DNA
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Messaging Frameworks & Taglines
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Strategy Sprints for implementation
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Brand Concepts & Activation strategy
Marketing, Communication & PR
I help brands, hands-on, with how they should communicate, show up, and grow across channels, campaigns, partnerships, and earned media.
By connecting business objectives with a genuine experience in consumer insights and strategic marketing, I create marketing systems, playbooks, and communication frameworks that build both brand and support sales.
Services include:
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Marketing Strategy (Price, Product, Place, Promotion)
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Communication & PR Strategy
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Copywriter, bringing the story to life
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Storytelling Playbooks
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Campaign Architecture
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Content & Social Frameworks
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Interim and team lead for implementation
PR & Brand Activations
For selected brands, I create long-lead PR initiatives, partnerships, and brand activations that generate attention, strengthen relevance, and build meaningful long-term consumer connections.
From thought leadership, creative product positioning, and collaborations to sustainability programs and real-world brand experiences, the goal is always to create impact beyond advertising.
Services include:
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Brand Activations
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PR Concepts & Launches
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Conceptual Collaborations
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Ambassador Strategies
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Experiential Marketing
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Community Initiatives
Fractional Brand & Marketing Leadership
For selected brands, I work as a strategic advisor, fractional marketing and/or brand lead, or senior support function, helping connect business objectives, brand strategy, and marketing, communication, and PR execution.
Drawing on my 20 years of experience as a head of marketing, global PR manager, creative director, head of sustainability affairs, and brand lead, I support organizations through project-based, interim, and advisory roles.
Services include:
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Interim Marketing & Team Leadership
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Fractional Brand Leadership
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Team Alignment and Team Lead
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Cross-Functional Collaboration
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Seasonal Planning & Go-to-Market
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Workshop Facilitation
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Senior Strategic Advisory
About Me
I've spent more than 20 years working at the intersection of consumer understanding, brand strategy, marketing, PR, and activation, both inside global brands and on the agency side.
Throughout my career, I've held senior leadership roles, including Creative Director, Head of Marketing, Global PR Manager, and Brand Strategist, leading everything from global brand repositionings and marketing strategies to sustainability transformation, campaigns, and go-to-market plans.
Today, I run Above The Clouds, a strategic consultancy helping progressive lifestyle brands turn consumer understanding into stronger brands, better decisions, and more effective marketing.
Let's Connect & Collaborate
I offer a freelance consultant service where you as client get the benefits of in-depth expertise across a number of specialty areas, without having to increase your permanent staff or contract a full size agency.