Most brand work starts with guessing.
This is the part that stops it being one.
Fair warning: this is the least exciting page on the site. It’s also the one that decides everything after it.
The market, your category, and the people you’re actually trying to reach.
Primary sources, named, with the working shown. Not a mood board, and not a hunch dressed up in a deck.
- The category read. Who else sells what you sell, what they claim, and what they charge where it’s published.
- The buyer read. What your customers actually say, in their words, sorted by where they are when they say it.
- The gap. Where there’s room, and what it would take to stand in it.
- What we’d do with it, if you want that part.
Because it decides everything after it.
And because handing someone a strategy without showing the working is how most of this goes wrong. You should be able to see what we based it on, and argue with it.
It’s yours whatever you do next. Take it to another studio if you want to… we’d genuinely rather you had it.
We ran it on ourselves before we ever sold it.
Every claim sourced, and the check at the end cut some of our own. That’s the same doc you get.
That stung. But, it also worked.
It’s research, so here’s the honest version.
Most of the work is ours. Your part is a couple of conversations and access to what you already know. And some of what comes back won’t be what you were hoping for… which is the whole point of paying for it instead of guessing.
A lot of businesses can’t lead with proof.
Regulated work can’t use testimonials.
Confidential work can’t name anyone.
A new offer has no results yet.
So the decision gets made on what someone can read about you beforehand.
That’s what we read.