What we do

Our challenge was to increase the pace of change towards a new form of retailing that blended physical showrooms, digital tools and people. Using behavioural science to create a popular movement, we designed and orchestrated an integrated change campaign, facilitated co-development and architected mass engagement and training.  Usage of digital tools increased from 20% to 90% of in-store interactions, delivering a £620 increase on average invoice value. The model was adopted as a template for all markets across the world.

Our client, a large independent schools' network, was facing growing deficits, difficulty in finding the best staff and was distracted by global opportunities. We faced into the underlying strategic options and made choices, transforming the leadership team, implementing a revolution in governance and relaunching the brand to the world. Two years later our client had returned to surplus, seen pupil numbers grow and had become a magnet for teaching talent.

A regional leader in South East Asia was facing intense local and global competition, with an imperative to become more customer-centric and innovative, fast. We listened to its customers and agents, enabled extensive organisation engagement with frontline staff to interpret customer-centricity, and implemented a campaign-based social change process. The organisation became better at attracting and retaining customers, achieving 24% growth in value of new business.

A challenger bank enjoying a niche position was pushing for new customer growth without becoming ‘just another bank’. April took a discovery-based approach to uncover what was distinctive about the culture and  proposition that customers valued, exploring and discarding the conventional route of aggressive new customer acquisition. The bank saw accelerated growth achieved from an unexpected source: existing customers rather than new customers.

The inventors of a multi-purpose in-home hot beverage machine who found themselves in a spiral of competitive value erosion asked how they could re-inject value growth. We involved the consumer and the client directly in the process of creative development and encouraged the client team to work outside their usual silos as a focused, agile project team, employing design thinking and ‘rigorous creativity’. The resulting new concept shows the highest value potential seen for 12 years and is to be launched across nine markets in 2021.

Our client, a mid-sized European player, wanted to accelerate growth while moving away from traditional ‘sweets’ towards ‘better for you’ categories. We explored behind the mask of acquisition-fuelled growth to probe root causes of poor performance, decluttered the growth agenda to a handful of ‘big bets’, and managed parallel strategy and implementation planning. The outcome was a doubling of turnover and trebling of share price over a five-year period, with improved scale execution capability.

Madagascar is the biggest single producer of vanilla but the ‘feast-famine’ cycle puts pressure on the local economy and farmers. Sustainable vanilla had been a priority for our client as part of ‘sustainable business’ and consumer brand messaging.​ Our proposition was to design and communicate a more sustainable, less cyclical value chain story. The outcome was more resilient communities, improved environmental standards, better vanilla quality and availability, and a partnership for shared, more sustainable growth.​