When things are a bit more difficult to explain.
When the market needs building before it can be won.
Some categories are structurally harder than others. The science is complex, the experience needs explaining, the consumer needs educating, the proposition is unfamiliar, the category itself is often still being mapped. Functional health and nutraceuticals. Premium food and drink. Plant-based and alt-protein. Genetic and personalised health. Specialty consumer goods. Cultural and arts organisations. In categories like these, the standard marketing playbook fails. Shouting louder than the competition doesn't help when the problem is understanding, not awareness. The task is to translate complexity into something real people can understand and care about.
Use us if
Sales are flat because the proposition isn't translating to a sceptical or new audience.
A regulatory or category shift is changing how the story has to be told.
Your category is new, finding its shape in real time, and you want to chart the route rather than follow it.
You’re relying on an acquisition model trying to reach customers that don’t really exist yet.
Investors or partners are struggling to articulate what you do when they talk about you to others.
What we do
Translating complexity is at the heart of much of our most rewarding work. We've built positioning for plant-based food brands entering markets where the category was barely understood. We've helped genetic and personalised health businesses build education led acquisition models that withstand both clinical and consumer scrutiny. We've worked with premium drinks brands on the signalling logic of category leadership and with arts and cultural organisations on the experiential complexity of what they offer. The work typically involves a deep audit of how the proposition currently works, structured stakeholder and consumer research to understand where the market is, where it's heading, and where your brand needs to be when it gets there and a brand strategy that often involves shaping the whole business model. And the operational discipline to make sure the strategy lives in the small decisions: product, packaging, communications, sales conversations, not just the positioning document.
Our perspective
Most consultancies treat category as context: the existing territory in which a brand competes, waiting to be mapped and understood. We see category as the work itself. Categories are cultural forms as much as commercial ones, shaped by the language people use, the communities that gather around them, the stories they tell and the tensions that emerge as they evolve. A proposition that's difficult to explain is often difficult because the category itself hasn't fully formed. The cultural ground beneath it is still shifting. That means the work isn't simply translating a proposition into clearer language. It's understanding the cultural territory the proposition must travel through and helping to shape it. The brands that participate in a category's formation help define what it becomes. The best category work doesn't just operate within culture. It helps create it.
Strategy as the art of the possible
Strategic ambition matters, but strategy that ignores what the business can genuinely build produces wish lists rather than roadmaps. We work with what a business can build from where it is now. Understanding current capabilities, resources, and momentum is as much a part of the work as understanding where the category is heading. The best strategic outcomes find the version of the ambition that's actually achievable and build the plan that gets you there in stages.
The questions we ask
What does this category actually mean in people's lives?
Who are the communities that gather around this category and what are they trying to do?
What would someone need to understand, believe, or be able to do for this to become the answer for them?
What is this proposition delivering that's different (and what parts of that still need to be built)?
Where is the cultural ground shifting, and how does that change what's possible?
What can this brand credibly stand for, given both the territory it operates in and what the business can actually deliver?
How it works
Complex Categories work varies by depth of strategic engagement. Some businesses need a focused piece of work to arrive at a clear strategic direction. Others need a substantial programme that takes strategy through to articulated positioning and communications. Others need cultural intelligence and strategic support as sustained capabilities.
Kickstart
A quick, fast turnaround way to start turning complexity into an asset.
One to two weeks of focused desk research into the category, its cultural context, and the specific strategic question the business is facing
A one-day workshop with the leadership team working through the strategic questions and possibilities
A written strategic report: a working document capturing our reading of the category and the shape of what could come next
A follow-up conversation once the document has been lived with, to test and refine
For businesses wanting a low-commitment way to work with us and see what's possible. Typical timescale: 3-4 weeks.
LEVEL ONE · Strategic direction
A focused piece of strategic work that develops a clear direction for the brand in its category.
Briefing conversations and framing of the strategic question
Cultural analysis of the category: discourses, communities, tensions, shifts
Initial view of the ecosystem the brand needs around it: communities, cultural intermediaries, category-building relationships
Assessment of current capabilities, resources, and momentum
Strategic direction development and articulation
Written strategy with clear position, rationale, and recommended next steps
For businesses at a decision moment who need to arrive at a strategic answer. Typical timescale: 6-8 weeks.
LEVEL TWO · Positioning and articulation
A more substantial programme that takes strategic direction through to articulated positioning and communications strategy.
Cultural analysis and strategic direction (as Level One)
Primary research with target communities
Positioning territory development
Proposition articulation and messaging architecture
Communications strategy and content principles
Ecosystem map: the communities, cultural intermediaries, and category-building relationships the brand needs in years one, three, and five, and how to build them in sequence
Documented brand strategy ready to inform activity across the business
For businesses developing or evolving positioning in complex cultural territory. Typical timescale: 3-4 months.
LEVEL THREE · Strategic partnership
Ongoing strategic partnership for businesses whose category is actively reshaping and who need cultural intelligence and strategic support as sustained capabilities. Includes strategy development on an annual cycle, alongside sustained support between formal programmes.
Annual strategic programme (as Level Two)
Quarterly cultural intelligence updates
Ongoing ecosystem development: supporting the growth of community relationships, cultural intermediary partnerships, and category-building connections
Strategic support for positioning decisions as they arise
Ongoing analysis of category shifts and emerging tensions
Annual reset of strategy and communications approach
For businesses in categories that are actively evolving and need sustained cultural intelligence. Typical timescale: annual partnership, usually starting with a twelve-month engagement.
Bespoke engagements
We can tailor our approach to meet specific situations. Category work can shape around particular moments: brand extensions into culturally different territory, category exits and repositioning, response to significant cultural shifts affecting the brand.
What we bring
A practitioner and academic combination. Twenty-five years of brand strategy across complex categories, alongside active academic research in consumption, identity, and the marketing of high complexity propositions. We don't just do this work we study it. That depth shows up in the ideas, the frameworks, and the willingness to think harder than most.