About Brand Edge

Brand Edge are an established research and insights agency based in Alderley Edge, Cheshire.

Owned by two former strategy directors- Ben Leonard & David McGlone- Brand Edge have a wealth of experience working with an impressive array of blue chip brands. The agency prides itself on offering best in class service at reasonable rates.

We use insights, along with our strategic planning backgrounds to inspire brands and grow businesses.

We believe too much research adds to the fog of information within businesses and too many researchers confuse more often than they clarify.

We have developed an approach built around a 4i model (Information, Intelligence, Insight and Inspiration).

We help businesses make sense of business information and market intelligence but we see insight as the key to developing more inspiring content and communications.

Why work with Brand Edge?

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We work in a very efficient way

We have low overheads, work at speed and squeeze more value out of less time and smaller budgets
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Added value through interpretation

Most researchers report back what they see and hear. We’re strategic planners by training and have developed approaches to solve just about any business problem
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We’re pragmatic not precious

We get the pressures clients are under and also understand how outputs need to work for stakeholders (for example partner agencies, investors and regulators)
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We have broader perspectives, and more open minds

Broader perspectives, and more open minds, thanks to the number of categories and challenges we work across. And real depth in certain categories… Beverages (soft drinks and alcoholic), Hospitality, Vets and Pets, Charity, Utilities, Homewares and Automotive.
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Only senior talent

The partners in the business do all the work, clients will never be passed on to junior resource after the “beauty parade”

How we identify and activate insights

01.

Qualitative and quantitative research

On and offline, qualitative and quantitative, always cutting through the clutter, cost and time efficiently

02.

Running workshops

Fun, engaging, purposeful and using a range of disruptive techniques that challenge lazy thinking and avoid category myopia

03.

Brand definition and differentiation

Typically sharpening brand expressions, helping smaller brands and challenger brands punch above their weight

04.

Communications strategies

Mapping audience journeys and engagement landscapes to help clients drive deeper connections with their audiences and build stronger brand traction

05.

Employer branding

Challenging the obsession with generic values by creating stronger links between beliefs
and behaviours and breathing life into internal communications

Examples of our methodologies

Conflict Approaches

Conflict Approaches

Why did we develop it?

Lively debate gets you to a better place than passive discussion so we deliberately recruit “opposite” mindsets within the same groups to facilitate more robust analysis

Co-creation Bootcamp

Co-creation Bootcamp

Why did we develop it?

Standard co-creation approaches might be “trendy” but they can also be really tedious and lots of the “theatre” is facile. We recruit more opinionated respondents and have conceptual creatives in situ to create ideas, iterate content and ensure we build momentum behind the best ideas

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The Last 5 Yards

Why did we develop it?

Pre-store and exit interviews are fundamentally flawed – intent and recollection don’t reflect the “moment of truth” that dictates success or failure… we don’t replicate the decision making process, we are part of it, in real time

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Insight Express

Why did we develop it?

An approach that disproves the notion that you can’t have good, quick and cost effective… we can turn qual, quant or combined methodology projects in 7-10 days and be debriefing game changing insights before most agencies have booked the fieldwork

Projects

Our approach in action…

Jura

Unleashing the power of a great brand story

Acting as the pivot between client and agency throughout the creative development process, helping to sharpen the brand expression, using innovative research techniques (semiotic analysis of the emergent, out of category, codes of luxury) and testing the final packaging solutions in Europe and the US.

Holts

Giving the brand more bite

Using the Ten Grand Brand approach to give the brand teeth. Refocusing client and agency thinking around one simple but profound shift… from helpful to heroic.

Leeds Cares

Creating clarity from complexity

Providing Leeds Teaching Hospitals with a new national charity brand.

Insight and strategic support that saw a complicated brand structure replaced with a compelling new brand identity, with a supporting positioning built around the notion of progressive philanthropy.

Vets4Pets

A more pragmatic approach to segmentation

Delivering an insightful + actionable segmentation of the UK pet owning population built around brand team engagement, audience insight and powerful activation.

Arriva

Cost effective research preventing a costly mistake

A fast turnaround piece of research into a campaign idea that was loved internally before the client team questioned whether there was time to “check with the consumer” – six groups and six days later the debrief highlighted some fairly major issues and resulted in a rebrief.

Felimazole

360 campaign development support

An end-to-end process including client workshop, strategy development, research, creative briefing and concept testing, resulting in a stand out, category challenging campaign.

Testimonials

Get in touch!

If you like anything you’ve read, feel free to get in touch for a no obligation and no “hard sell” chat.





Address

Brand Edge Ltd.
Alderley Chambers
12 London Road
Alderley Edge, Cheshire SK9 7JS

Phone

Ben Leonard: 07930 397 473

David McGlone: 07966 923 055