Competitive edge powered by humans, culture and data

Helping Axe/Lynx re-articulate who they are in the world, we went on an extensive journey with them, using a plethora of innovative approaches to uncover the ‘magic’ that used make the brand great, and apply that to modern culture. 

From early-stage research with ‘old Axe’ men (now in their 40s), through to Gen Z influencers and experts in modern masculinity, we helped uncover what a new vision for the brand might look like. Iterative, agile advertising development finished the process – helping them select an agency in a pitch situation, developing and fine tuning the new campaign idea in partnership with them. 

‘The new Axe effect’ campaign resulted in a lot of positive publicity and exposure for the brand, also winning an Effie in 2021.

Tommy Hilfiger wanted to help people with disabilities engage with fashion through a revolutionary clothing line but didn’t know where to start. We began using lifelogging to show how people with a broad range of disabilities have had to “hack” clothing to meet their needs their whole life, highlighting both the challenge and the opportunity to the C-Suite. 

Bringing out All Humans Crew on the end-to-end innovation journey, we convened a broader internal steering committee to guide range development, eCommerce experience, and all communications. We also worked to define partner & reseller UX an accessibility requirements, to ensure the line was understood and inclusively buyable across channels.

This powerful work reframed how Tommy thought about inclusivity as a whole, transforming their broader brand strategy, while also picking up multiple design and strategy awards along the way. Read more.

A leading musical instrument brand came to us to help them define the content opportunity and provide inspiration for their socials. We scanned music industry reports, conducted trend analysis on approximately 200 music and audio-based products, and synthesised content from key competitors to uncover interesting territories with energy in culture, set to permeate the music world in the next few years.  

We explored the most relevant in-depth, bringing them to life visually with brand examples and guidelines on creating inspiring, engaging content for each. We rounded our portion of the research up with a provocation – to reframe what they think of as ‘content’, in turn allowing them to stretch beyond their comfort zone into a whole new world of consumer engagement.

The frozen pizza market is crowded and our client needed to carve out its own role and purpose both within the category and the business’s wider portfolio. With a lot of untapped potential, we needed to move beyond being functional benefits alone, building a greater emotional connection with the target audience, developing a unique and relevant brand positioning to serve as a guide for future brand communications, pack design and beyond.

Immersing ourselves in the worlds of the target consumer enabled us to identify their needs and occasions where the brand could have a unique role to play. Turning insights into territories, we focused on the story to drive the brand forward, with a clear and compelling brand platform, guidelines around execution and thought starters for comms and innovation. 

A global, household tech brand wanted to help people upskill & reskill in tech qualifications but needed foundational insight to get them there. Diving into the meaning of education from a qualitative and cultural perspective, we took these learnings into a quantitative exploration among current users to pinpoint learning goals, needs and barriers toward succeeding in the program and, subsequently, in the job market.

From a custom quantitative sizing piece, defining the market in a whole new way, illuminating a massive opportunity across markets, we then deep-dived with a segmentation study. We then whittled this down to 2 distinct audience opportunities, with clear roadmaps of how to engage them, dovetailing this in with engagement opportunities

Our insurance & services client spotted a new product opportunity and needed our expertise to help develop it further.​ Using a multi-phase, multi-mode approach to explore the opportunity using qualitative and quantitative methods, we were able to develop the product and determine the exact structure of the offer.​

Our recommendations informed the launch of the product, as well as the initial bundle/pack variations and cost options that encouraged initial uptake amongst consumers, with initial feedback being positive and it continuing to be available today.

A leader in real-time 3D content development asked us to help them better understand the evolution of their marketplace, their users – and their brand perception – to influence their future positioning and development in a new digital era.

We built foundational understanding through desk research & stakeholder interviews, validated hypotheses in quantitative, and went on to run a series of B2B interviews with real-time 3D platform users across multiple industries such as film, gaming, entertainment, architecture and construction. Finally, in collaborative workshops, we developed the new positioning for the brand, along with recommendations on how to manage their portfolio, innovation opportunities, and competitive watch-outs (and advantages) for the future.

Lipton asked Firefish to bring to life a particular segment in Thailand, Brazil, US, Russia and China to deliver a richer, more nuanced view of their worlds. We looked at all elements of their life as well as their connection with – and expression of – the brand positioning, using filmed ethnography, face-to-face, video diaries and lifelogging. 

This individual exploration was then complemented with triads, giving us an opportunity to get a collective view on their lives and the brand, resulting in a series of stimulating films that breathed life and authenticity into the brand strategy, going on to directly inspire a new campaign for the brand.

Bonhams Auction House asked us to establish a customer experience tracker to speak directly to a range of their discerning clients, across sellers and buyers. Whilst headline NPS data was provided to gauge high-level brand (and competitor) performance, broader diagnostic metrics were also included, to help them determine key areas of focus so they can reach their customer excellence goals.

Due to the success of the project, we have since been helping the business to dive into specific business functions, providing further targeted insight for development, as well as working on a study to determine pertinent retention levers that can be pulled at will, in line with the incoming CX scores.