The sequence is the product.
Every engagement runs the same six steps in the same order. The method is not a framework you adapt. It is a fixed sequence that produces a specific kind of output.
KNOW
Define the actual question.
Define what you are actually trying to find out, rather than what you assume you already know. Most briefs arrive with the answer embedded in the question.
MAP
Chart the choice environment.
Map the options people actually encounter, the defaults they navigate, the friction they absorb, and the competing signals acting on them.
DESIGN
Build the strategic frame.
Positioning, naming, narrative architecture, and the decisions that follow from them. The frame has to be specific enough to be wrong.
BUILD
Translate strategy into things that ship.
Briefs, systems, assets and activation logic. Strategy that cannot be handed to someone and executed is not finished.
MOVE
Execute with the market, not at it.
Put the work into the environment and adjust based on what the environment returns. The market is a participant, not a target.
PROVE
Measure what changed in behaviour.
Behaviour, not awareness. Awareness is easy to move and easy to mistake for progress.
Skip a step and the next one produces confident nonsense.
A method you can rearrange to suit a timeline is a menu, and a menu produces whatever the client already wanted.
MAP without KNOW charts the wrong environment accurately. DESIGN without MAP produces a frame built on the assumption in the brief. PROVE without MOVE measures an intention rather than a result. The order is not a preference. It is what makes the output checkable.
A map of the choice environment
The options, defaults and friction points that actually govern the decision.
Positioning
A statement specific enough to be wrong, which is what makes it usable.
Naming and narrative architecture
The language the strategy runs on, and how the parts relate.
Activation briefs
Instructions another team can execute without us in the room.
A behavioural measure
Agreed before the work starts, so the result cannot be redefined afterwards.
A decision
Sometimes the finding is that the market is not worth entering. That is an output.
If your research is producing comfortable answers, it is probably measuring the wrong thing.
We work with a small number of clients at a time. Engagements start with a 30 minute call.
Or write to us at hello@weknowaway.nl