Being Ordinary Won’t Do Anymore

NOA

Ordinary always has an expiry date. The world keeps moving and what worked yesterday will not carry us into tomorrow. Evolution is a fact of life. At NOA our principle is to understand how the world evolves and to shape the adaptations that allow humans and organizations to move with it in the right way so the system can breathe again instead of breaking.

Following our principle, NOA began its journey in 2007 in Vienna with a simple belief: brands can do more than sell, they can connect and create meaning. In just a few years we grew into five cities across Western markets including Vienna, Belgrade, Zürich, Berlin and New York, working with some of the world’s most iconic names such as Coca-Cola, Absolut Vodka and other Pernod Ricard brands, Henkel, Samsung, the World Bank and the City of Vienna. These early years showed us that true success comes when we sense how humanity itself is evolving and when we help brands become part of that movement.

As time moved on the rules of the game began to change. The tech revolution was in full throttle and branding together with marketing risked becoming pure execution, losing the depth that once gave it meaning. In 2017 we made a conscious choice to leave the world of execution behind and to focus on brand and business consultancy. To ground this shift we brought human understanding into NOA, drawing from anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy and cognitive science. Working with global brands, private equity and startups showed us how brand, business and human systems are deeply connected and where they begin to break when they no longer respond to the meaning people are looking for.

By 2025 the cracks in organizations and systems had become impossible to ignore. Covid and the acceleration of technology made it clear that many ways of working and thinking were no longer fit for the future. In response we brought together nearly two decades of experience in brand, product and business strategy with deep human understanding. Out of this integration we created Organizational Thinking™, a practice that helps organizations realign their inner workings with the meaning they bring to people and the world.

Today we guide organizations and societies toward Human–Centricity™, so that people and organizations can evolve together and thrive.