THE CO-OPERATIVE CHILDCARE

COMPETITOR RESEARCH

“We required market research on our competitors within a tight turnaround. S2 addressed the brief excellently, providing research results that helped steer decisions around our core offering and how we can differentiate ourselves. This is not the first project S2 has undertaken for us and we have confidence in using them for our research and insight requirements.”

Gemma Allardyce Head of Commercial Operations & Marketing

The Brief

The Co-operative Childcare (TCC) is part of the Midcounties Co-operative with 44 nurseries across England. TCC asked S2 to undertake competitive research to understand what their competitors provide, enabling them to benchmark their ‘Big Difference’ offering within the marketplace.  Once each competitor’s core offering was identified, they would be able to measure themselves against these base standards or points of difference, to assess or measure how they would stack up in terms of desirability to parents.

Action

4 competitors were covered within the research project. S2 researched and analysed how each nursery chain was run, what they offered as ‘best in class’, their positioning and mission statement. A mixed methodology was employed across desk research, parent reviews and employee satisfaction using ratings given through industry recognised review sites. Parent mystery shopper calls to assess how brand core values were communicated to potential parents and website appraisals of positioning and values. Undertaking a variety of sources enabled Serendipity2 to gain a clear picture of each competitors offering, fundamental principles, staffing and how they communicated their positioning and core value to potential parents.

Result

The research conducted provided Co-operative Childcare with a clear understanding of their competitors offering and how it aligned and measured against their own point of difference. Identifying how competitors’ position and market themselves, provided Co-op with a clear steer on where and how they need to communicate and differentiate themselves. It also identified how competitive the marketplace is with all main nursery groups trying to offer a point of difference in standards to cater for discerning parents.