Strategy

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At Canoe, our strategy service covers three main areas of study: Future Forecasting, Cultural Marketing and Growth Frameworks which work in that order.

Future forecasting is about understanding what’s next and what’s coming down the line for brands and consumers. This is where we explore emerging topics that aren’t on the radar for most brands or audiences yet. On a quarterly basis we take an emerging topic and take a deep dive into how it may shape our future. A good example is our white paper on Trust as the next big shift in brand x consumer relationships.

Cultural marketing sits closer to current resonance. This is where we look at how communities are engaging and changing and what that means for belonging. We explore topics like the future of community and emerging trends and subcultures. The output here is practical guidance on how brands can participate, what to build, who to support, and where to step back. A great example is our cultural marketing work for Engine Gin. We looked broadly at the spaces they wanted to resonate in, identified partners, tastemakers and trusted voices across music, fashion, and creative scenes and built a roadmap to help them integrate and create trust at consumer level. This area of study can also take the form of deep dives, like our “What Next for Run Clubs” deep dive. This work has gone on to power our performance team deliver best-in-class results for brands such as Saucony, now Europe’s fastest growing run brand.

The third area of study is Growth Frameworks. This is a more practical, actionable set of strategy tools. Here we focus on the mechanics that shape how brands operate: distribution, discovery, identity, and measurement.

The work takes different forms, including marketing and campaign playbooks, consumer insights, audience acquisition mechanics, talent strategy, social strategy, content strategy, and brand or retail experiences. Some pieces cover broad ground, such as the Dickies 247 EMEA campaign or the Hey Dude Social Strategy.