30+ Years Building Ecosystem Value
Building infrastructure
to capture unrealized revenue.
For 30 years, Cognifi founder, Susan Jensen, designed complex stakeholder ecosystems achieving strategic outcomes across public utilities, healthcare systems, municipal governments and telecommunications.
Now this methodology is being applied to hospitality, cultural tourism, and destination marketing: helping DMOs, hospitality aligned vendors, tour operators, and boutique properties build the coordinated networks to secure a strong position in the white space we identified to generate unrealized revenue.
Cognifi’s proprietary process ensures we start
by exploring the white space
before building out your signature positioning
and an ecosystem of aligned voices
all working together to gain consideration
by upscale and high-yield guests.
Phase 1 Position Excavation
We map the specific circumstances only you occupy: the intersections of trends, current white space and your specific unreplicable assets like place, heritage, expertise, and relationships. The intersection of these inputs constitutes your signature positioning.
Differentiation is what you do. Positioning is what you occupy.
Phase 2 Ecosystem Mapping
We identify every sector where your guests look to for experiences. We identify the ecosystem partners who fill the niche needs of upscale and lux travellers. We vet these partners to reveal those that currently strengthen your position, and secure your competitive advantage.
Phase 3: Ecosystem Activation
We activate these partners to become a network of trusted voices who already interact with your prospects, but aren't currently coordinated around your positioning. Each eco-system partner becomes a storyteller positioning you authentically within their own conversations. Collectively, this creates the coordinated ecosystem that makes you the obvious answer.
Phase 4: Compounding Infrastructure
We map the touch points between where your prospect looks for this information and your channels, digital or otherwise. As the social media cross-promotion matures, each partners’ position strengthens.
We design accessible opportunities for guests to share their experiences. Just as each story refines your signature positioning, each storytelling moment extends your reach.
This is how strategic positioning compounds: direct bookings increase, platform dependency decreases, average guest value rises. Year one builds infrastructure. Year two generates momentum. Year three operates with structural advantage.
We Excavate Five Layers of Advantage
Geographic Location and What It Uniquely Enables
Not just "where you are" but what your specific location
makes possible that competitors elsewhere cannot replicate.
Heritage, Origin Story, and Founding Vision
The circumstances that brought your brand into existence
and the principles that continue to guide decisions.
Design Philosophy and Spatial Experience
How your physical environment and aesthetic approach
creates experiences competitors with different design cannot copy.
Community Integration and Local Relationships
The network of artisans, producers, organizations, and establishments
you're connected to through years of authentic relationship building.
Operational Approach and Service Rituals
The specific ways you deliver hospitality that reflect your values
and create memorable moments guests recognize as distinctly yours.
These are more than marketing messages.
They're the authentic advantages,
established by your specific circumstances,
that become the foundation
for your signature positioning
and ecosystem marketing strategy.
WHAT YOU'LL RECEIVE
Our comprehensive positioning analysis includes:
Competitive Landscape Analysis
How your competitors position themselves, where category language has become commodified, and the white space you can own through signature positioning.
Unreplicable Asset Inventory
The specific stories, relationships, and circumstances only you possess. This becomes the foundation for ecosystem marketing that competitors cannot replicate.
Ecosystem Opportunity Map
The third-party trusted storytellers currently in your network, and critically, those missing from it, who could position you before prospects begin platform searching.
Signature Positioning Recommendations
Clear direction on articulating your unreplicable position in ways that make platform comparison irrelevant. This shifts you from just a commodity to the obvious choice.
Activation Roadmap Preview
Initial guidance on which partnerships to pursue, which stories to amplify, and how to begin building your ecosystem marketing infrastructure.
TIMELINE 4-6 weeks
Week 1-2: Stakeholder interviews, competitor research, ecosystem mapping
Week 3-4: Asset inventory, signature positioning analysis
Week 5-6: Strategy synthesis, presentation, recommendations
Investment & Timeline
INVESTMENT
Starting at $3,500
Custom pricing on a case by case basis, based on brand complexity and competitive landscape. Contra agreements possible.
Begin With Discovery
Every signature positioning strategy starts here:
understanding what makes you unreplicable