Why Confident Brands Win
What separates a brand people notice from a brand people look to for what’s next?
According to Oatly Executive Creative Director Jeremy Elias, one of the answers is surprisingly simple: confidence.
In this episode of Authority Architects by 7 Wonders, Jeremy shares lessons from 17 years in creative marketing, including his time building branded content at The Atlantic and now helping lead creative work for Oatly.
Great Brands Behave With Confidence
Jeremy describes the strongest brands as organizations that enter culture with such conviction that audiences naturally begin looking to them as an authority.
They take creative risks. They have a distinct point of view. And they don’t appear to be constantly asking permission from the market.
That confidence comes through in everything from collaborations and events to design, social content, and larger brand platforms.
The goal isn’t simply to chase what is already considered interesting. Strong brands can help define what feels interesting.
Advertising Is Becoming More Like a Newsroom
The media landscape has changed dramatically.
Jeremy’s early work at The Atlantic involved branded articles, podcasts, documentaries, events, and other formats that traditional advertising agencies once viewed as secondary to major commercials and campaigns.
Today, those formats have moved toward the center of brand marketing.
Creative teams increasingly need a newsroom mentality: work quickly, respond to culture, tell strong stories, and accept that not every piece of content needs blockbuster-level polish.
Video plays an especially important role in that shift.
From short social clips to documentaries and creator collaborations, video allows brands to tell richer stories and reach audiences in the environments where they already spend their time.
For 7 Wonders, that is precisely what makes video such a valuable authority building medium: it combines information, personality, emotion, and storytelling in a way few other formats can.
From Campaigns to Always On Platforms
Another major shift Jeremy sees is the decline of the traditional start and stop campaign mentality.
Instead of running a six-week campaign and disappearing, brands can create ongoing platforms that continually produce experiences, stories, partnerships, and content.
At Oatly, that might mean events, creator partnerships, collaborations with cafés, or cultural initiatives that continue evolving rather than ending when a media flight does.
The result is a consistent presence instead of occasional bursts of attention.
Perfection Can Get in the Way of Relevance
Brands today need dramatically more content than they did only a few years ago.
That requires creative teams to decide where perfection genuinely matters, and where it simply slows them down.
Sometimes an extra day of color grading or another round of tiny revisions won’t meaningfully change how an audience responds. A strong idea delivered at the right moment can matter more.
The brands that build authority in this environment will combine strong taste and creative standards with the speed, confidence, and consistency required by modern media.
Watch the full Authority Architects episode from 7 Wonders on YouTube to hear Jeremy’s perspective on Oatly, branded content, creative confidence, video storytelling, and the rapidly changing future of advertising.
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