Research, positioning, naming
Brand strategy and positioning
We find the sharp truth your competitors are too careful to say, then build the story, naming and messaging around it.
Most positioning work produces a document nobody opens again. The reason is usually that it tried to be true of everyone: a promise about quality, service and people, which every competitor in the same search results is also making. A position that describes the whole category is not a position.
So we start by finding the thing you can say that they cannot. That comes out of interviews with you and your customers, a hard look at what the rest of your market claims, and the parts of your business you have stopped noticing because you are inside it. Frequently the strongest line is something you assumed was a limitation.
From there we write the story: what you are for, who you are not for, and the sentence a customer would use to explain you to someone else. If naming is in scope we do it here, because a name is easy while the position is still moving and expensive once it has set.
You get one recommended direction with the reasoning behind it, not three options to average out. If we think you are wrong about your own market we will say so during this stage, which is the cheapest possible moment to hear it.
Questions we get asked
How long does positioning take?
Two to four weeks for most companies. The interviews are the part that sets the pace — we need time with you and with a handful of your customers, and their diaries decide as much as ours do.
Do we need this if we only want a new logo?
Not always. If you already know what you stand for and can say it in a sentence, we can go straight to identity. If that sentence is hard to write, designing the logo first means designing it twice.
What do you need from us?
Time with the people who know the business, honest answers about what is not working, and an introduction to a few customers. Access to whatever research already exists helps, but nobody needs to prepare a deck for us.
What if we disagree with the direction?
Then we argue about it, which is the useful part. You get one recommended position with the reasoning, so disagreeing means disagreeing with a specific claim rather than picking a favourite from a menu.