In collaboration with a global food company, we carried out a market structure project to define critical JTBDs and consumer-centric strategies for expanding into emerging markets.

Our ethnographic approach (mobile diaries and in-person cook alongs at consumers’ homes) emphasized understanding the nuances of consumer needs and product benefits, providing actionable recommendations for demand planning and strategy. Along with stakeholder interviews, research scans, and expert consultations, we uncovered key moments where our client's products could make a meaningful impact in consumers’ everyday lives.

We crafted a winning strategy that aligned with a 3-5 year roadmap, driving market growth and penetration.

We partnered with a global beauty conglomerate to create a comprehensive guide to the evolving beauty landscape. Leveraging quantitative data analysis, cultural signal gathering, a synthesis of existing research, and expert interviews, our objective was to identify the most influential aesthetic trends and situate them within broader cultural contexts. We codified these trends in an anchor report and continuously monitored their evolutions for a refresh report later in the year.

Collaborating closely with our clients, we brainstormed implications for their brand portfolios, ensuring they remain ahead of the curve in the quickly evolving and highly saturated beauty industry.

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We partnered with a global luxury spirits brand on the development of their first China origin single-malt whisky distillery. Our role included work on the brand creation, from positioning through to naming. A key objective for the client team was to connect local cultural provenance with their global expertise in whisky making.

We ran a series of consultancy workshops with stakeholders including leadership, R&D, architects, and the lead design agency, to develop cultural narratives that respected the traditions, provenance and enduring assets of the distillery location. We also engaged whisky consumers to guide the brand development process. The distillery broke ground in 2022.

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We partnered with a luxury NEV car maker whose sales were lagging in the competitive Chinese domestic market. The brand wanted to find a cost effective way to target a progressive demographic that would be attracted to its limited offer and concurrently act as brand amplifiers. The brief was to define an under leveraged creative class.

Through a network analysis of social data we focused in on interior designers and photographers as a creative class who share similarities with the production of the NEV through operating with engineered tools and hold relevant influence in spatial design and visual culture online.

Delivering a tight media and collaboration strategy to brief advertising, media and influencer partners, the brand saw a 471% increase in sales from 2020 to 2021.

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We worked with a global beauty category holding company to uncover new tropes of femininity. This core understanding of shifts in gender roles underpinned the development of creative and communication strategies.

We scanned media conversations around femininity and analyzed top influencers speaking on the topic to develop a series of personas from which we recruited women who represented a more progressive view on womanhood. We then cast and shadowed 10 female business, entertainment and academic leaders for a week to understand their aspirations, fears and future ambitions.

The Result was an annual campaign whose sales performance exceeded ROI KPIs by 15%

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We worked with the client team on an eco city development in Tianjin. The goal was to uncover how they might further optimize 'Smart City' features that could be replicable across future projects in China and the rest of APAC.

Through research with client stakeholders, government officials, and residents we formed the initial scan of our study. We enriched this with a comprehensive and extended ethnographic study of the residents followed by a robust 'jobs to be done' analysis.

Through workshops with various local and regional senior stakeholders we delivered a set of solutions for residents and MVPs for infrastructure that the client team will roll-out in the Tianjin Eco-City.

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