Markets, categories and channels are always evolving and changing. Competitors – both close-in and fringe – are constantly in flux and their actions directly impact your business. How do you stay informed and ahead of the curve? Our researchers and analysts utilize global resources, networks and business intelligence to gather both a deep and wide understanding of the marketplace and synthesize the information in meaningful and relevant ways. Looking to get smart fast on a new channel of distribution? Want to learn more about a new competitor that has entered your space? Need the 411 on a potential new customer? Our team can provide comprehensive insights and learnings quickly and in a powerful visual and verbal format that is compelling and easy to digest, utilize and share with others.

Whether pouring over existing research data with a fresh eye, identifying secondary research to leverage, utilizing consumer groups with proprietary methods, conducting on-site interviews to uncover novel ideas and perspectives or designing custom quantitative research to fill in a critical gap, we are always using compelling ways of gathering facts, and turning that data into strategic business insights. We work closely with you to collaboratively design the most effective research approach possible. Our team then executes and interprets the qualitative and quantitative research data by applying a range of sophisticated analytic approaches, to allow a unique story to emerge from the findings. It’s this story that informs the innovation opportunity. Our goal is to help our clients quickly and effectively find ways to translate the insights gained into meaningful innovation and business solutions. Looking to get into the hearts and minds of consumers?  Want to better understand what your customers are really thinking?  Want to get more answers AND actionable direction out of your research?

Using a variety of observational research techniques – visual diaries, video ethnographies, day-in-the-life studies, shadowing – opens an expansive window into human behavior. These approaches lead to a deeper contextual understanding of what and why consumers do what they do. We engage our world-class social anthropologists, ethnographers and designers to work closely with you and your consumers to uncover unmet needs that help to drive opportunity areas for innovation through experience mapping. We then utilize these insights as a springboard for the innovation process. Have you considered some unconventional techniques to understand what people do rather than what they say they do? Are you looking to uncover unmet consumer needs to spark innovative ideas? Observational research could tap powerful new ways to think about your products, services and your consumer.

Garnering key insights from trend experts, a global network of trend spotters and early adopter consumers, TrendShare is a trend investigation process that drives fresh insights for our clients. Trends are driven by a range of factors, including pop culture, human behavior, media, news, and the arts. TrendShare is a proven process of identifying and mapping these factors. Identifying emerging shifts in consumer social behavior and aspirations is a powerful tool in providing inspiration, enhancing idea generation, and informing strategic planning. By developing a systematic approach to identifying trends, organizations can better develop new and disruptive products and services that are real, relevant and significant for today’s consumer. Do you need to understand how colors, substrates, materials or new technologies could affect your product line for next year?  Do you want to get a handle on what’s in store for your key target consumer this year?  Want to know how nano-technology could impact your category? Does your team need to know what’s next for Millennials?  TrendShare is your answer.

Combining traditional qualitative dialogue with the use of visual stimuli, Cloverleaf’s PhotoSynthesis process elicits deep understanding of brand perceptions by helping consumers to articulate their thoughts, beliefs and feelings through images as well as words. The PhotoSynthesis process allows us to define current perceptions and future opportunities in both verbal and visual language — ultimately guiding critical brand communications using these key insights. It is estimated that 80% of human experiences are filtered through our eyes and 70% of all sensory receptors are located in our eyes. Exploring both verbal and visual insights with consumers is a powerful way to identify perceptual and visual equities and to explore unarticulated consumer needs and associations. Because consumers have a difficult time articulating how they truly feel about brands and products, PhotoSynthesis provides the tools to help them clearly and effectively communicate what’s in their hearts and minds. How can this process work for you? PhotoSynthesis can help if you are interested in re-positioning an existing brand/product/service. It’s a powerful resource if you’re trying to find the relevance of your brand with a new target consumer. Or, if you’re interested in developing a new line of products, PhotoSynthesis can help you determine the fit of your brand with your new offering. content here.

On-going consumer feedback and speed to market are critical components to innovation success. Thus, we utilize our Consumer Optimization Laboratory (CoLab™) during our innovation process to gain instant consumer feedback around product/service concepts. The Cloverleaf CoLab is a research setting that combines deep qualitative consumer feedback with the opportunity to make real time iterative design/copy refinements to concepts by our team of experts. As consumers are exposed to the concepts coming out of our innovation process, they can react and suggest ideas and modifications for actionable insights and learnings. As the research progresses, the concepts evolve to be fully optimized. Our clients find that getting real time reactions on concepts and having the ability to evolve those ideas immediately streamlines the entire innovation process saving time and money. Do you have ideas, concepts and platforms that you’re looking to optimize before launch? Are you interested in truncating your innovation delivery time?

As part of our innovation process, we work closely with our clients to help validate each of the innovation concepts and approaches to effectively measure and assure their viability, clarity and success. One effective approach we utilize is a hybrid of qualitative/quantitative research to garner measurable data behind each of the concepts combined with qualitative insights to provide vivid learnings on why a concept is/is not preferred by an end-user. As part of the validation process, we dimensionalize the new product/service/brand opportunities by breathing life, emotion, and depth into the concepts – by adding visual language, consumer narrative, brand names, identities, or creating 3-dimensional models or prototypes. Consumers can then touch, feel, taste and experience the concepts in a much more tangible way. Through our validation process we get very decisive results of which concepts are preferred, why, their appeal, fit and intent to purchase. Do you have an existing product concept but don’t know if it’s a winner? Have you had a brainstorming session that generated a myriad of ideas but you don’t know where to go? Are you looking for ways to qualify and quantify a new idea you have?