Competitor research for brands and websites
Before you decide how to look and sound, it helps to know what your audience already sees. We study how your competitors, and the organisations you admire, present themselves, then show you where you blend in and where there's room to stand apart.
Find the gap before you design for it
Most sectors settle into a shared look. On Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, nearly every attraction used the dockyard's colours, which tied them together but flattened their character. Spotting that early shaped every design decision on the Mary Rose Trust website that followed.
The most useful comparison is often outside your direct rivals. For LDN London, RNIB's approach to colour and layout taught us more than any other charity we studied, and it became a principle for the whole site.
Local and national benchmarks
You see the organisations competing for the same audience near you, alongside the leaders in your field nationally.
Findings you can design from
Each observation ends in a recommendation for your brand, content or interface, so the research carries straight into the work.
How it works
Agree the questions
We decide together what you need to know and which decision the answers will inform.
Choose the methods
Interviews, testing, audits or analytics, picked to fit the question and your budget.
Gather the evidence
We talk to your audience and review what you have, with you involved throughout as the subject matter expert.
Find the patterns
Findings are grouped with the evidence behind each one, so nothing rests on opinion.
Act on it
You get recommendations ranked by effort and return, in a form your team can act on straight away.
See where you stand
Tell us who you compete with for attention and we'll show you what your audience sees when they compare you.
Our 'why' & promise to you
Your audience compares you with others long before they get in touch. Knowing what they see side by side is the starting point for standing apart.
This work exists to give you evidence you can act on, so the decisions that follow rest on what your audience actually needs.
You’ll get answers before opinions
You will not be handed a design direction first. Every recommendation is earned through what your audience tells us and shows us.
You’ll be in the work as the expert
You know your organisation better than anyone. You are involved from the first conversation, and your knowledge shapes every finding.
You’ll get findings you can use
You will get clear, ranked recommendations with the evidence behind each one, written for the people who will act on them.
You’ll move forward with confidence
You will know what to change, why it matters, and what to do first.
Our full list of Services
Consultancy
& Research
- Competitor research
- Customer journey mapping
- Digital/web strategy
- Usability testing
- User research
- User personas
UI/UX Design
- UI & UX design system
- Information architecture
- Wireframing & prototyping
- User flows & stories
- Conversion rate optimisation
- Accessibility
- Mobile first design
Brand & Design
- Creative direction
- Brand assets creation
- Brand identity system
- Tone of voice
- Brand purpose services
- Brand values
- Print design services
- Design retainers
- Video & motion graphics
- Corporate presentations
- Social asset creation