What does a psychology degree, a finance degree, and a small town in Iceland have to do with the future of energy branding? Everything, according to Dr. Friðrik Larsen.

In this episode, Tyrell sits down with Friðrik – founder of Brandr and the brandr Index, CEO of LarsEn Energy Branding, and creator of the CHARGE energy branding conference – to trace his unlikely path from aspiring banker to the world's first PhD in energy branding. Friðrik shares the pushback he faced trying to convince a business school (and a room full of skeptical engineers) that commodities like energy could be branded at all, and how that stubbornness turned into a career.

The conversation digs into why so many energy and utility companies still treat branding as a cost center instead of an investment, why old-school metrics like NPS fall short for measuring brand strength, and what it actually takes to get a CFO to care about brand value. Friðrik and Tyrell also tackle the murky lines between sustainability messaging and greenwashing, why ”authentic and transparent” keeps winning at the CHARGE Awards, and what nuclear energy – an industry with a serious perception problem – can learn from decades of branding psychology.

It's a candid, wide-ranging conversation about risk-aversion in a risk-averse industry, the human psychology behind why people resist change, and why perception beats reality every single time.