Playing Out The Future

Most market research today focuses on creating a picture of what the current landscape is, and comes up with any of its recommendations by inferring them from this mostly static snapshot.  At PSB, the competitive methodologies we use, derived from our political work, allow us instead to play out scenarios into the future.  We use research as a laboratory to understand what the impacts will be following any of a number of possible alternative moves and how each one will stand up to competitive counter-moves.

This approach is what makes our work so powerful.  When we provide guidance about what a client should say or do, we have tested that plan and determined that it will survive and succeed despite the likely response of the competitors.  This is as true in building corporate image or product positioning as it is in assessing ad effectiveness or charting a path through an emergent crisis.  And it means that our strategic advice is really that – it lays out in crisp detail what our first move should be, how the competition is likely to respond, and what our ensuing pivot should be, often months or even years into the future.  Because ultimately, knowing what is happening now is nice, but knowing how things will play into the future is critical.

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