Listening to consumers. Identifying patterns. Watching the marketplace. Delving deep into industry-specific data. All well and good.
What separates the observer from the true consultant is the ability to know what to look for, understand what to listen to and being able to apply those insights in actionable, market-changing ways.
That’s intelligence, Chute Gerdeman style.
Strategic Assessment & Consulting
We would be pleased to conduct a strategic assessment or guide a productive work session to help you identify key issues within your organization around brand perception, communications, retail or brand experience.
Should your direction already be set, Chute Gerdeman would begin with in-depth executive interviews, research downloads and brand and store audits to establish common understanding: Where are you today, and where do you want to go?
Together, we’ll create the successful road map.
Consumer Insights
We’re skilled hunters of the elusive fact, and we’re dedicated listeners who swear an oath of neutrality.
We know what questions to ask. We know how to listen. And, more importantly, we know how to interpret what we hear.
Our skill comes in providing the tools that let conversation flow and providing prompts that elicit the golden truth.
Techniques? We’re fluent in the quantitative and qualitative—ethnographics, focus groups, interviews, shop-alongs and online.
Trend Reporting
Glance at our passports. Look at our shoes. You’ll quickly find that we’re on the road a lot, keeping up with trends in design, communications, visual merchandising and breakthrough retail concepts, both here and abroad.
We’re your trained eyes and ears, bringing our retail expertise in reporting. We recently completed a market overview study in China for one client; a comprehensive visual trend report of the London retail scene for another.
We stay connected to the worlds of generational behavior and cultural migrations, dialing into the seismic shifts in beliefs and attitudes that imprint a whole generation with its unique behaviors.
Competitive Landscape
We specialize in competitive audits because, honestly, we know what we’re looking at.
We can break apart an environment into intelligent observations, analyzing space allocation, brand messaging, communications strategy, merchandise or service priorities.
We spot strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and a merchandise test at 50 paces. Often, we surface competitors that aren’t on the radar simply because we see the world differently.
Best Practice & Emulator Study
Your competition for a consumer’s attention is the world market. The experiences consumers have everywhere, from hotels to airports to luxury shops to vacation spots, influence their every need and expectation.
Online, mobile and social media platforms up the ante even more, making instantaneous multi-channel confluence a stark reality.
You simply cannot be content with being aware of what others in your industry are doing. Instead, you must know what consumers are seeing and believing, across industries and around the world. Which is exactly why you need a savvy retail intelligence team to bring insights from the field to your desktop.
Pre- and Post- Concept Validation
Bottom-line impact. Every company requires it. Every initiative demands it.
Certainly, ROI is about “how much.” But it’s also about how to prove it.
We think the best way to bring proof to that discussion is to plan for it.
We recommend conducting a pre-concept benchmark study and then returning after the prototype or refresh project to validate with a post-implementation segment.
The results? Usually eye-opening and always insightful.
