Candor

About Us

Candor is a human-sciences based creative agency

We believe the world deserves more Candor.

We build brands that win by offering the most valuable creative experiences to the humans they serve

ETHOS

Creativity killed advertising. What used to be a delicate balance between art and science tipped over into creative being king. The result? The industry turned into a navel-gazing, everyone gets a trophy clusterf*ck that served agencies more than clients. The irony? The very nature of the word agency is agent – a person who acts on behalf of another. The business has forgotten the power exchange and driven straight over the cliff.

It’s time for a return to a thorough understanding of how our consumers are behaving, their buying patterns, decision-making, affinity for one brand over another, and why one brand of toilet paper is a better decision than another. That’s not creative. That’s behavioral science. It’s how one avoids the commoditization trap. That’s where Candor comes in. We’re not bolting that onto an existing company, we’re building it from scratch. Think Jane Goodall meets Jack Trout and Al Ries and they all decide to go have a drink with Dan Wieden. In some ways, it’s a subtle shift, in another it’s a revolution.

The last revolution in the business happened forty years ago. The rebels have become the rulers. Creativity at any cost isn’t a long-term strategy. It has to be anchored in a real understanding of the consumer. It has to be built on the “why”, not the “how” or the “what”. The “why” is our north star. The industry has to be steered by it.

What we do —

1

Build deep cultural resonance with consumers

Statistical analysis / Data synthesis / Cultural anthropology
2

Develop marketing and engagement strategies

Storytelling / Branding / Design / Print + OOH / Experience design
3

Building valuable creative experiences

Film + TV Production / Social content creation / Directing / Photography / Prototype development / Web development / Brand activation

How we do it — through a process called Human Design

HUMAN DESIGN

Candid review of what you know and do not know about the dreams, fears, values and norms of your customers, and how these are changing

Honest diagnosis of your brand strategy and market context, strengths and weaknesses

Co-author five deep questions about your customers that, when answered, will facilitate your strategic objectives

We tailor-design a suite of qualitative and quantitative methods that will answer these five questions

We translate our perspective on how to deliver value to our future customers into key brand opportunities. We define how your brand can win in your market

We build on consumer insight and deliver human insight, creating a shift –

FROM

TO
Transaction driven

Connection driven
Answering what, when?

Answering why?
Understanding what people want

Understanding their life and real needs
Deep quant, light qual

Deep qual with quant validation
From getting the numbers

The narrative behind the numbers

Our Team

We are a collective of creative problem solvers — storytellers, social scientists, business strategists and specialists in creating — for the world humans occupy