What was the problem?

A brand team had for some time been watching the activities of a small but growing competitor. The new company’s communications were particularly troubling. They were fresh, direct and seemed to speak to a crucial target segment in an intimate and compelling way.

Everyone who read this stuff could feel how good it was, but no-one could quite put their finger on what was so good about it.

Dammit, they said, how do they do that?

The client company didn’t want to mimic this material, but it did want to fully understand the apparent strategy, as part of evaluating the potential competitive threat.

What did we do?

We carried out a forensic analysis of the material and exposed exactly how it was achieving its voice, tone and intimacy.

But we also linked this into far bigger linguistic, cultural and social trends, and showed how the new competitor was gaining power by riding these trends.

What did they get out of it?

The information helped the client company take informed decisions about its communications strategy.

And it encouraged it to think about the longer-term implications of those key cultural trends for its own business.