Brand Diagnostics
REPORT TYPE 03REPORT TYPE 01A Brand Diagnostic Report is commissioned for the moments when a brand’s performance, equity, and strategic options require independent scrutiny.
Every report is independent and commissioned on a single brand and written for whoever has to decide what happens to it next. The method is the same in each case, and the reason for commissioning it sets the question the report answers.
Establishes what went wrong and why, separating the decisions the business made from the conditions it faced, and states whether the brand can carry a recovery plan. Written for the board or owner deciding what happens next.
Forensic
REPORT TYPE 02Outlook
Sets out what the brand must do to justify the price paid or the plan approved over the next five to seven years. Where the outlook is poor, the report says so and recommends the exit route to take. Written for a new owner, PE sponsor, or incoming CEO or board chairman.
Investment
For investors, a due-diligence read on whether the brand supports the case made for it and what the upside depends on. For founders, a test of whether the brand is investable ahead of a raise or a sale, while there is time to change the equity story. It informs the investment decision and carries no valuation.
Every report closes on a stated position.
Each diagnostic tests the plan in play against what the brand can actually carry: the investment case before capital is committed, the value-creation plan during the hold, the equity story before a sale. It closes on one of three positions, and the third is stated as plainly as the first.
01.
Brand Carries The Plan
The evidence supports the plan as written. The brand diagnostic report names what it depends on and the signals that would show it succeeding or failing.
Revised Plan Required
The ambition is achievable on an adjusted or pivot route. The brand diagnostic report specifies and prices the changes against your baseline.
02.
Brand Can’t Carry Plan
The brand does not have the constructs to deliver what the plan asks of it. The brand diagnostic report says so and sets out the options that remain.
03.
How a Brand Diagnostic Report runs.
COMMISSIONING
A short call establishes which moment applies (pre-investment, in the hold, or pre-exit), the decision the report has to inform, and the date it is needed by. We then issue a fixed-fee proposal and an evidence request.
EVIDENCE AND DATA ACCESS
The brand's commercial data, shared under NDA, typically panel data, retail measurement, gross-to-net by customer, and cost-to-serve by channel, plus public and syndicated sources. Data below the evidence standard is not used, and any gap is stated in the report as a finding.
Commissioned reports are never published or referenced without written consent. Our published Brand Reports cover only brands whose outcome is already public.
CONFIDENTIALITY
TIMESCALE
A standard Brand Diagnostic Report takes two to three weeks from receipt of the full evidence request.
FEES
A fixed fee, set by the scope of the decision, with 50% payable on commissioning and 50% on delivery.
DELIVERABLES
A written report that closes on one of three stated positions, with the evidence and reasoning behind it, followed by a debrief with your leadership team or investment committee.