WHO WE ARE
UPSTREAM is a front end innovation consultancy that helps leaders build vision and strategy for growth. Our experienced team originates from the worlds of design, research, brand strategy, marketing, and media technology where they honed skills applying world-class design thinking across silos to realize future vision.
WHAT WE DO
We collaborate with leaders to envision and achieve future ecosystems of interconnected products, services and communities. Our work bridges the gaps between technology, product design and marketing to drive disruptive innovation.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
1. No two organizational cultures are the same, therefore no single innovation approach is ideal for all organizations.
2. Best practices level the playing field and lead us to where we already are.
3. Brand innovation is the most valuable type of innovation because it can’t be duplicated.
4. Brand innovation is the act of building a new community of customers through the holistic creation of new products, services and communications that result in a seamless branded experience from the consumer point of view.
5. Brand innovation addresses human needs; leverages technology, assets, channels and capabilities available to a business; and resides in market space that is both valuable and winnable.
6. Brands grow by becoming more relevant in peoples’ lives and making other brands irrelevant.
7. A Brand’s purpose enables it to cross market, category and technology boundaries over time.
8. Adoption of change occurs through action, not rhetoric.
9. Our greatest challenges and opportunities lie not in the creation of technology, but in it’s adoption.
10. Business impact is maximized when product, service and communications are conceived holistically as a seamless brand experience.
WHY WE EXIST
Upstream was founded to address one of the most important but unfulfilled needs of leaders in the business of innovation. Pinched between executives asking, “What’s next?”, and execution teams who need to launch tomorrow, no team existed to impact the business of innovation where it matters most – empowering leaders to consistently answer “What’s next” in the pursuit of new growth.
HOW WE ARE DIFFERENT
SYSTEMIC VIEW: Design firms predefine solutions as a new physical or on screen product. Marketing firms predefine solutions as new communication architecture. Advertising agencies predefine solutions as a new campaign. Research firms predefine solutions with a specific software tool or technique. We’re solution agnostic. We understand that business outcomes are best achieved through holistic solutions, unique to your organization, that deliver a seamless experience from the consumer perspective. Our cross-functional team is built to deliver impact across silos.
BUSINESS MODEL: Whereas most brand, design and advertising firms depend on a factory model that exploits large teams of inexperienced professionals, we’ve deployed an ownership model that thrives on proven leadership and consistent results. The model attracts the best experienced talent in the region.
WHAT CLIENTS ARE SAYING
“UPSTREAM provided important and essential insights into our market and business. They arranged and ran co-creation workshops that led to new and high potential concepts to build on. Most importantly, they provided us with a repeatable process of discovery, co-creation and validation that is both rational and inspiring.”
- GM, Philips Lighting
“It is difficult to summarize all of the value that UPSTREAM provides because it goes far beyond the usual categories of “design,” “branding,” “creative,” etc. to a more systemic support role in the process of developing a brand across all touch points to achieve business impact.”
- CEO, Tiossano
“UPSTREAM was instrumental in changing how we think about our customers at Motorola — moving from a traditional segmentation strategy of price and feature to a more meaningful user-based strategy. The foundation they built through their thought leadership continues to provide new and valuable innovation.”
- Director of Research & Insight, Motorola
“UPSTREAM added immense value to our client relationship by helping us intuitively communicate the business implications of our research to our client side partners in marketing, brand and research functions. By working closely with Upstream, we were able adjust our research tool kit to acquire data in new ways, filter through collected data, and then synthesize it into easy to understand consumer journey and brand ecosystem tools. Our deliverable to our client was not only actionable, but an impressive differentiator for our business.”
- V.P. Integrated Research Solutions, IPSOS
WHERE WE DWELL
