What we offer
Audience strategy, insights and future analysis
A common challenge our clients face is the need to weave together the plethora of data and facts they possess about their audiences into a strategic narrative about the past, present and future. Many organisations are not even clear about who their target audience(s) are in the first place.
At AKAS we help our clients identify their target audiences and develop their audience strategy. We achieve this by unearthing insights based on our analysis of audience data the client provides, as well as freely available data we obtain online. In addition, AKAS’ business modelling and future analysis offer a range of techniques and multiple sources to create audience trends, projections and scenarios.
We typically answer three key questions: WHO makes up the audience we are analysing? WHAT are their characteristics and behaviours? And, perhaps most importantly, WHY are they behaving in this particular way?
Ultimately, the recommendations we provide for our client are always derived from the question: ‘So what does this mean for you?’ This is where AKAS applies its business acumen and multidisciplinary approach to ensure that the client gains new wisdom about its audience and fresh ideas.
Through this process, we identify what clients need to do more of, do less of, do differently or stop altogether, and what new things they need to start doing instead. This offer enables clients to develop audience strategies based on plausible models and assumptions as well as helping them spot opportunities that may arise in uncertain times.
Guardian News & Media testimonial
World Bank Group testimonial
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation testimonial
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development testimonial
Luminate testimonial
Hromadske testimonial
Channel 4 testimonial
Children`s Investment Fund Foundation testimonial
London & Partners testimonial
Strategy Analytics testimonial
nfpSynergy testimonial
Schools in London Borough of Merton testimonial
Action for Children testimonial
Impact strategy & measurement
Many of our clients are struggling to capture the long-term impacts of their organisation’s communications or journalism.
AKAS’ Impacts Framework provides a logical and compelling way to help clients reflect on their impacts strategy by assessing the organisation’s inputs, outputs, short-term outcomes, real world impacts amongst audiences, influencers and decision-makers, and ultimate impacts.
Adopting a sophisticated method to understand each organisation’s global influence, AKAS uses its proprietary intelligence databases to assess whether a client’s work has been linked to by leading organisations across the globe in the fields of media, government, parliaments, business, academia, research, international co-operation, civil society and philanthropy.
Guardian News & Media testimonial
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation testimonial
Luminate testimonial
Hromadske testimonial
Investigative writing to expose the inequity of the marginalised
People make sense of their reality and are spurred to act by stories. The stories that cut through the clutter are the ones that touch both our minds (through robust evidence) and our hearts (through connecting with our humanity). At AKAS we write narratives, reports and articles that link human experiences which evoke empathy with generalisable data findings. In our ever more polarised world, empathy provides the path to unity while evidence provides the guiding light to trust.
At AKAS we write stories that give voice to the voiceless; that amplify the voices of those whose voice is drowned out by others’. We believe in equity of opportunity and the equality of all human beings irrespective of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, age, education, nationality, disabilities, affluence levels or creed; and the power of compassion to bridge societal polarisation.
Strategic communications narratives
Organisations often lack a systematic approach to strategic communications and business storytelling. In addition, when they develop data-heavy presentations, the key messages tend to be lost in cluttered slides which lack enough “white space”.
At AKAS, we have developed a number of products in response to the strategic communications challenges faced by our clients. With these, we help provide clarity around what they want to communicate, to whom, how, when and where.
We offer a business storytelling programme which identifies a variety of storytelling structures that can be applied to business stories. We also offer a presentation design programme which focuses on how to achieve the three key elements of impactful presentations: clarity, simplicity and consistency.
Our client feedback reveals that they judge their communications to be sharper, and more strategic, targeted and impactful as a result of their engagement with AKAS.
Guardian News & Media testimonial
Strategy Analytics testimonial
nfpSynergy testimonial
Multi-methodology research
Sometimes clients are keen to delve deeper into understanding a particular audience or an aspect of their behaviours and attitudes than the available data sources allow.
In these instances, AKAS either commissions research on behalf of our clients or we conduct the research project ourselves. We are confident working with a range of quantitative, qualitative and hybrid methodologies. We design surveys and discussion guides for the public or the business and not-for-profit communities. We also conduct interviews and moderate sessions with senior stakeholders. At AKAS, we use methodologies which not only record post-rationalised behaviours and motivations, but also uncover unconscious drivers and emotions, both of which are vitally important in understanding human behaviours.
Our research work leads to meaningful, thorough and insightful reports which help our clients to understand their audiences’ needs infinitely better.
World Bank Group testimonial
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation testimonial
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development testimonial
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group Inc. testimonial
Luminate testimonial
Channel 4 testimonial
Children`s Investment Fund Foundation testimonial
London & Partners testimonial
nfpSynergy testimonial
Schools in London Borough of Merton testimonial
Action for Children testimonial
Our approach
At AKAS we have developed a 5-step approach to working with our clients and to tackling audience challenges
The 5-step approach to audience strategy development
Step 1
Engage
We engage with our clients to understand their audiences, their strategic challenges, the universally held truths in their organisations and their goals.
Step 2
Assess
We assess what the organisation already knows about its audiences and stakeholders, allowing us to identify knowledge gaps and develop hypotheses.
Step 3
Unearth
We test the hypotheses we have generated and analyse data from (multiple) available sources, uncovering the implicit knowledge held within the organisation, and making it explicit.
Step 4
Develop
We develop the audience and stakeholder story emerging from the insights unearthed about both, often juxtaposing different viewpoints in order to understand fully the context in which the organisation operates.
Step 5
Create
We (co-)create business opportunities by bringing together the client’s needs and goals with the audience and stakeholder story we have developed.