The Brief

The current student offer (Scream brand) was seen to be underperforming as a result of low previous investment, the perceived increase in student costs / debt from fees and an over dependence on aggressive discounting which had led to low margins.

 

We were asked to analyse the student landscape and to look for opportunities to develop “themes” that could subsequently be translated into full retail concept with an aim to roll out.

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What We Did

We used some potential Stonegate targeted investment sites as a start point and analysed the surrounding competitor landscape in detail by visits, test purchases and recorded all experiences including covert video / photos.  

 

We used trends and detailed desktop research to identify other sites and retail chains who were at the more cutting edge of this broad younger adult / student market.   Many of these were also visited and from this, we developed a range of potential styles and retail offers that could potentially be adopted as a solution.  These reflected a much more grown-up approach, less / no discounting and a much clearer focus and USP's.

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The Outcome

The findings were presented to Stonegate Board and covered all the key themes and potential solutions.  We were subsequently asked to develop the retail proposition, known internally as Common Room, which was directly aimed at 2nd and 3rd year students and like-minded young adults.  The roll out of developments has been rapid with investment returns have been superb. 

 

See RETAIL CONCEPT example for more details of how we did it

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