Services
Cultural Context Groundwork
A perspective on cultural change over time to pinpoint milestones and forces shaping today's values and behaviors, explaining why they matter to your brand. In-depth interviews with influencers and experts may enrich historical, social, and cultural synthesis.
Potential rewards?
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Spot key cultural shifts influencing consumers
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Navigate tensions and oppositions
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Meaning maps to stretch thinking
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Track your cultural impact or identity
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Leverage heritage and brand equities
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Brand authenticity sense-checks
Category Decoder
An exhaustive look at the brands within your category space, both iconic and niche, identifying their explicit and implicit communication cues (from ads, social media, packaging, in-store displays, etc.). These will be classified into distinct and detailed territories of meaning -- to help you understand where competitors play vs. your brand.
Potential rewards?
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Practical and sensorial category guidebook
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Relevance trajectory (residual, dominant, emergent positionings)
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Visual matrix to spot ownable, over-saturated, or novel territories
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Brand refresh or invention
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Reconnaissance on competitors or ‘brands of interest’
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Pre-launch assessments (e.g. category debut, brand acquisitions, U.S. market entry)
Springboard Decoder
A rich visual and verbal tableau to understand the various ways a core brand concept or positioning might be expressed (e.g. "masculinity", "authenticity", "fun", "healing", "luxury"...), drawing on adjacent categories . Each "code" will be brought to life vividly, illustrating future-facing directions that might be breakthrough for your category, with guidance toward the most promising. A springboard decoder helps you align with emerging culture -- to stay true to your identity and ensure you stay relevant.
Potential rewards?
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Practical and sensorial identity playbook
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Unlock transformative brand positionings
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Future-proof concepts
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Innovation inspiration and category disruption
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Anticipation of emergent consumer values
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Dos and don’ts for cohesive identity
Trends
A thorough survey of your category space and relevant adjacent categories to uncover shifts in consumer values that other brands are tapping into, why they are becoming important, and how they're influencing the creation of new and interesting products and services. A bounty of specific examples will be classified into distinct territories, to stretch thinking about innovation, communication, and targeting.
Potential rewards?
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Sort fads vs. momentous change
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Innovation inspiration and category disruption
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Gauge swings in consumer demand
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Spot emergent investment territories
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Brand relevance sense-checks
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360° trend monitoring (e.g. cultural, products/services, messaging)