Frame
Lock the brand decision, HCP audience, market, geography, period, and evidence standard.
Output / decision briefCompetitive intelligence Evidence standard
The dangerous competitor number is the one no one can defend.
HCP competitive intelligence fails when observed activity, licensed estimates, inference, and absence of evidence are blended into one confident story. A useful brief keeps each class visible, then connects it to a decision.
Commission the intelligence briefEvidence contractReview state
QuestionWhat can this signal actually support?
01
Public verifiedDated, citable, directly observed
Use02
Licensed verifiedRights, method, period, scope recorded
Use with terms03
Client providedOrigin and validation status visible
Qualify04
InferenceReasoned interpretation, not fact
Label05
UnknownEvidence is unavailable or insufficient
ProtectWorking research, models, and exports remain protected.
01 / The standard
Competitive intelligence should narrow a decision, not decorate a deck.
A competitor set is a hypothesis until it is validated against the same HCP decision, market, geography, and time period. Channel presence is not spend. Creative volume is not investment. A missing public trace is not proof that an activity did not happen.
The work becomes useful when it shows what is observable, what requires a licensed source, what is inferred, and what remains unknown. That is the evidence contract Cadence uses from intake through executive readout.
02 / Decision path
Five gates between a signal and a recommendation.
The method is deliberately harder than collecting screenshots. Each gate removes an avoidable source of false confidence.
Validate
Confirm which competitors affect the same decision and document why each belongs.
Output / competitor setClassify
Tag every material input by source rights, date, confidence, limitation, and evidence status.
Output / evidence ledgerInterpret
Compare message, audience, timing, and channel patterns without converting visibility into spend.
Output / pattern mapDecide
State the implication, owner, next action, risk, and evidence that would change the call.
Output / decision record03 / Spend boundary
Public signals can show presence. They rarely prove spend.
A dated observation, defined channel, accessible creative, public sponsorship, regulatory filing, or other directly citable activity.
A spend estimate with an authorized licensed source, documented method, period, geography, media scope, and known coverage limits.
An exact budget inferred from search presence, creative count, impression fragments, anecdotal visibility, or a model with no qualifying source.
04 / Client output
What the buyer receives.
The public site shows the standard and output architecture. The research workspace, evidence ledger, comparative models, and client-specific conclusions are available only within a paid engagement or license.
Validated landscape
Included competitors, excluded alternatives, and the rationale for both.
Traceable evidence
Source, date, rights basis, confidence, limitation, and evidence status.
Observable patterns
Message, audience, timing, channel, and call-to-action comparisons.
Spend status
Supported data when authorized, plus a direct account of what cannot be known.
Decision implications
Crowded territory, defensible whitespace, risks, tests, and watch items.
Executive record
The recommended next decision, owner, timing, and conditions for change.
Start here
Bring the decision. Cadence will build the evidence base.
The HCP Competitive Intelligence Brief covers one US market and up to five competitors, with a public-source base scope and licensed data quoted separately.