We compare the language of two groups that matter to your business, then measure what actually separates them. Buyers and non-buyers. Retained and churned. Your market and a competitor's. The difference is the finding.
The Capodan method
We turn that difference into a commercial decision, backed by evidence, not opinion.
Buyers vs non-buyers. Confident customers vs hesitant ones. Your market vs a competitor's market. Any comparison tied to a real decision.
We compare the language each group actually uses and find what shows up disproportionately in one versus the other. Not opinions. Frequency, likelihood, and the actual words people use.
You get the finding, the evidence behind it, and what to do next.
Capodan findings
Three comparisons we ran on public discussion. Directional evidence rather than decision-grade, and we say which is which on the work itself.
Buyers were not arguing about features. What separated them was how the car would make them look, and a sense the brand belonged to someone older.
"a brilliant modern sport saloon with nothing old man about it at all"
59,698 words compared. 438 distinctive signals. Public owner and enthusiast discussion.
When a deal closes, the reply is congratulations and comp. How it was actually won goes undiscussed. There was no language anywhere about win reviews or debriefs.
"Enjoy the high, man. Your boss will be back to moaning that pipeline looks slim tomorrow AM."
Log-likelihood 54.91, dispersed across many separate commenters rather than concentrated in one thread.
Families arrive with a checklist handed to them by other families. Staff turnover, ownership, medical cover, and what is not in the monthly fee. Operators lead on finishes and dining.
"there were many other random and monthly charges that were not mentioned when we toured"
42 occurrences against 16. Log-likelihood 24.21. Collocates with how, staff, medical and additional.
Each of these is a comparison we ran, not a client outcome. The figures describe what separated the two groups in the language. They do not describe a change in anyone's revenue.
Commercial stories
We use these to show the principle. Ask us for Capodan's own findings.
Domino's logo
Domino's rebuilt taste, crust and sauce around the language customers were already using, then made that feedback central to the relaunch.
McDonald's logo
McDonald's saw people wanted breakfast beyond the old breakfast window and brought the offer closer to how customers wanted to buy.
Dove logo
Dove moved away from narrow category ideals and built around a customer truth: many women did not see themselves reflected in advertising.
LEGO logo
LEGO refocused on the play experience customers cared about most, rebuilding around clearer customer value and product discipline.
T-Mobile logo
T-Mobile built its Un-carrier strategy around pain points customers disliked most, from contracts to upgrade friction and needless complexity.
Hyundai logo
Hyundai responded to recession-era buyer fear by reframing the offer around reassurance, not only vehicle features.
Coca-Cola logo
Share a Coke put names directly on bottles, making the product easier to talk about, share and connect with socially.
Snickers logo
Snickers made hunger instantly recognisable through language people already understood: you are not yourself when hungry.
Aerie logo
Aerie moved away from heavily retouched beauty imagery and aligned more closely with how customers wanted to see themselves.
Monzo logo
Monzo simplified parts of its business banking journey and help content so customers could act without needing support.
Moz logo
Moz used interviews with paying, trial and cancelled customers to answer real objections earlier in the buying journey.
Ryanair logo
Ryanair softened avoidable journey friction while keeping the low-cost model customers already understood.
Expedia logo
Expedia found that an optional form field was causing billing confusion. Removing the ambiguity helped more people complete booking.
ASOS logo
ASOS reframed account creation so the journey felt less like forced registration and more like completing the purchase.
Heritage Foundation logo
The Heritage Foundation improved value-proposition copy and reduced donation-page friction to make the ask easier to act on.
Ways to work together
Use Capodan when you need to understand hesitation, prove what builds confidence, or turn customer language into growth moves.
We compare the language of buyers and non-buyers, retained and churned, your market and a competitor's. The difference is what changes the decision.
When surface feedback is not enough, we design and deliver research that shows what matters and what to do next.
Our deeper work maps changing expectations, latent demand and the friction points that shape whether customers move or stall.
The deliverable
Every engagement produces the same artifact. One comparison, the finding, the evidence behind it, and what it points at. Here is a full one, unedited apart from removing the client's name.
Common questions
We compare two groups that matter commercially and measure what separates their language. Buyers against non-buyers, retained against churned, one market against another. The difference tells you what to change.
Most tools tell you what one group is saying. We compare two groups that matter to your business and measure what actually separates them. Buyers and non-buyers. Retained and churned.
No, we work across product, strategy, insight, CX, and leadership. Anywhere language plays a role in decisions, we add clarity and precision.
We start by understanding your challenge, then collect or work with existing language data from reviews to calls to competitor messaging. We surface patterns, signals, and meaning through expert analysis, not just AI.
Our tools support us, but interpretation is always human. That’s where the real insight lies, in context, nuance, and framing.
Customer reviews, call transcripts, sales pitches, chatbot logs, brand messaging, competitor pages, any language data can be turned into insight.
Absolutely. We often extract more value from what you already have, it’s just been waiting to be interpreted properly.
We tailor to the business need, decks, headline summaries, or leadership briefs.
Both. In fact, many of our sharpest insights come from complex or technical industries where language is the key barrier to alignment.
