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Conventional marketing is broken. The future is instinctive.

Triggers reveals the hidden memories behind instinctive choice, and shows your team what to keep, stop and add to grow.

Book a growth conversationSee a trigger in action.

2–3×average revenue growth

  • 95%of clients re-engage
  • $25Bincremental client revenue generated
  • 70+categories worldwide

Since 1995, trusted by brand leaders at

  • Finding fresh growth in everyday food decisions

    Food & beverage

  • Accelerated share increases in Medicare and Small Business

    Health

  • Helping MetLife shift to a consumer-driven organization

    Financial

  • Bringing human understanding into healthcare growth strategy

    Health

  • Uncovering what drives the next consumer choice

    Food & beverage

See the results

Several Snickers chocolate bars on a yellow surface with one bar open to show peanuts inside
SnickersYou’re not you when you’re hungry.Reframed the brand from a candy bar to a snack.

Your brand has untapped growth potential.

Every brand has more growth available than it is getting. These are the six most common growth challenges we see, and none are solved by conventional marketing.

Tell us which one is yours

Inside every brand is a hidden network driving choice.

People choose brands on instinct. That instinct is built from cumulative memories and associations going as far back as childhood.

The Brand Connectome® maps everything associated with the brand, what drives growth, and what’s holding it back.

A crystal network of glowing pink connections, most of it below the surface
  1. The implicit barriers that hold back competitive users.
  2. The true drivers that make Core Users buy.
  3. The vulnerabilities you can attack in your competitor’s Brand Connectome®.
Actual Brand Connectomes® will be shared in a live meeting. An actual Connectome® holds hundreds of associations, linked to one another, that we decode.

A Triggers engagement maps the Brand Connectome® for your core buyers, the buyers you want next, and your competitors. Mapped in weeks. Take action next quarter.

How the Brand Connectome® works

You don’t get another research report. You get a Growth System.

Deliver the briefs your agencies dream of. Harness brain science to instinctively drive growth.

  1. 1

    Map

    Why people choose the brand, why they don’t, and what has to change.

  2. 2

    Trigger

    The narrative, visual, and verbal cues that drive choice, all in an actionable playbook. Your team and agencies bring them to life.

  3. 3

    Grow

    Embed Triggers across your organization, so leaders can apply it themselves. Training, monitoring and ongoing optimization keep the brand improving over time.

See our approach

Growth problems we’ve solved

  • A bowl of macaroni and cheese
    Kraft Heinz

    Measuring what drives choice, not only what happens.

    Revealed valuable brand equity that survey feedback missed.

  • A jar of Ragú sauce in front of a vineyard
    Ragú

    Turning around a legacy brand.

    Twenty years of decline, turned around in a matter of months.

  • A bowl of Great Grains cereal with pecans
    Post

    Depositioning a dominant brand.

    Double-digit growth for Great Grains.

  • A hand reaching into a bowl of popcorn on a sofa
    DirecTV

    Turning a commodity into a premium brand.

    Significant inroads against cable, and double-digit growth for the brand.

  • A tube of Colgate Total beside a bathroom faucet
    Colgate

    Improving growth and profitability.

    Colgate Total, more competitive against Crest over ten years.

  • A bowl of hummus on a dark wooden table
    Sabra

    Reaching the next circle of consumers.

    Higher penetration among mainstream consumers, and growth again.

  • A burned-down cigarette standing in its own ash
    GSK

    Increasing patient requests.

    A significant increase in patient requests for Zyban.

“Ragú Italian Sauce had been declining for 20 years, so we called in McKinsey. Two years and $7mm later, they hadn’t moved the needle. Triggers® turned around the business in a matter of months.”

Kevin Ponticelli, President, Mizkan America

  • “Triggers®’ work is the application playbook for ‘How Brands Grow.’ It enabled our marketing people to grow brand salience and accelerate growth across the portfolio.”

    Emily Theis, Gatorade

  • “You made a big promise, and you delivered. In fact, I would say you totally exceeded our expectations.”

    Michelle Wang Goodridge, Kenvue

  • “This may be the most impressive consulting and insights presentation I’ve ever sat through.”

    Daniel Kaplan, PepsiCo

  • “There is only one problem with working with Triggers®. You quickly realize you should have hired them sooner.”

    Elyse Kane, former Global VP, Colgate

  • “If you’ve ever worked with Triggers®, you know you’ve worked with the best in the business.”

    Michael Farmer, Farmer & Company
What our clients say

Our thinking

Published in

  • Harvard Business Review
  • Scientific American
  • Knowledge@Wharton
  • MIT Sloan Management Review
  • Newsweek
  • NBC News
  • TEDx

See the newsroom

The Power of Instinct, the book

The Power of Instinct. The book by Triggers founder Leslie Zane (Hachette, 2024). More about the book

The questions we always get

Can we track our Connectome® over time?
Yes. We track the implicit associations and how your Connectome® is growing to complement your brand tracker. Tracking tells you where you landed, after the quarter closed. We tell you what is causing it and what to do next. Most clients keep their tracker.
Does it work in our category?
It has worked in more than seventy, from packaged goods to pharma to financial services. The subconscious is the same organ whatever you sell.
How long does this take?
About twelve weeks from kickoff to your Brand Connectome® in your team’s hands. Brands who put it to work can see results in the same year.
What do you need from us?
We need to understand what your team already knows about your brand and who you see as your competitors. We handle the rest.
Do you replace our agency?
Never. We don’t do marketing execution. The Growth System informs your packaging, positioning, promotions, and advertising, giving your agency and internal teams a clearer brief.

Bring us your toughest growth problem.

We’ll find what’s really standing in the way, and show you something you don’t already know.

Book a growth conversation