What Realitycheck does

RealityCheck Consulting LLC is a privately-held, founder-led market research and brand strategy firm founded in 1999 and headquartered in St Louis, Missouri. The firm serves Fortune 500 consumer brands across CPG, beverage, financial services, healthcare, pet care, beauty, and imaging. Its core service offering is human-centered consumer research built on psychological interviews conducted by clinical psychologists, in-home and digital ethnography, brand equity measurement, and empathic-listening training for client insights teams. RealityCheck operates with a small team of approximately 20-25 senior consultants and field staff, augmented by a regional consultant network that extends delivery across the United States, Latin America, Europe, Oceania, and Asia, with formal LATAM operations run from São Paulo.

The firm's intellectual property rests on a portfolio of trademarked and proprietary methodologies: Narrametric Analysis™ for identity-based brand equity measurement, Insights Journalism® for narrative-driven reporting, HXi (Human Experience Insights) for story-arc journey mapping, Attunement Workshop and Activation Sprint for training and rapid activation, plus Deep Story, Narrative Power, and Life Narrative Communication Development for strategy and concept testing. Delivery is supported by a ResTech stack including the RealityLive™ Communities digital platform, Luminoso for AI-powered text analytics, NVivo for qualitative coding, and the Aha! platform for online focus groups. The firm emphasizes a "Collaborative Intelligence" model where AI handles transcription, clustering, and drafting, while human researchers lead interpretation.

RealityCheck generates revenue predominantly through custom, project-based professional-services engagements sold directly to enterprise insights teams and C-suite executives at Fortune 500 brands, with multi-year relationships cited at 15-21+ years across clients such as PepsiCo, Nestlé Purina, Nestlé Waters & Premium Beverages, New Belgium Brewing, Starbucks, US Bank, Anthem, Nature Made, Nikon, Perrier, and Ulta Beauty. Secondary revenue comes from a syndicated report library of pre-packaged consumer insight studies sold via one-time licensing and from empathy training workshops billed as professional services. Pricing is undisclosed quote-based, varies by methodology, geography, and sample design, and the firm operates without external institutional capital based on the absence of disclosed funding beyond a single $180,000 raise in 2013.

Name

Realitycheck

Legal name

RealityCheck Consulting LLC

Website

https://realitycheckinc.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1999

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

RealityCheck is a boutique, founder-led market research firm that runs psychological interviews, ethnography, and brand equity studies for Fortune 500 consumer brands across CPG, beverage, financial services, healthcare, pet care, beauty, and imaging, using trademarked proprietary methodologies.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

St Louis

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Custom Market Research Consulting: Project-based custom research engagements for Fortune 500 brands. Services include ethnography, psychological interviews, brand equity measurement, team training, and strategic consulting. Revenue generated through consulting fees for research design, fieldwork, analysis, and reporting.
2. Syndicated Reports: The company maintains a Syndicated Report Library offering pre-packaged research reports on various consumer insights topics available for purchase.
3. Training Services: Team Empathy Training workshops delivered to client organizations to build internal human insights capabilities.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

RealityCheck is a full-service market research and brand strategy consulting firm offering qualitative and hybrid qualitative-quantitative research for Fortune 500 brands. Core offerings include ethnography, psychological interviews, proprietary brand equity measurement (Narrametric Analysis™), team empathy training, and rapid Activation Sprints. Services are delivered by clinical psychologists and senior insights strategists using proprietary methodologies such as Insights Journalism®, HXi, Deep Story, and Narrative Power, supported by a ResTech stack (RealityLive™ Communities, AI text analytics, online qualitative platforms).

Product overview

RealityCheck is a full-service market research consulting firm offering a portfolio of proprietary research methods and services. The core offering includes qualitative research services (Ethnography, Psychological Interviews, Team Empathy Training) and measurement tools (Narrametric Analysis™/Brand Equity Measurement). The proprietary methods layer includes Insights Journalism® for reporting, Activation Sprint for rapid activation, HXi for customer experience mapping, Deep Story for strategy foundations, and Narrative Power for concept testing. These are delivered through the RealityLive™ Communities digital platform. The approach emphasizes human insights over traditional consumer research, combining ResTech tools (AI text analytics, online qualitative platforms) with psychological depth to uncover the 10% of insights that matter most.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Ethnography In-home and digital ethnography services where researchers step into customers' homes and lives to observe real behavior and gather contextual insights for enterprise brand teams.
• Psychological Interviews In-depth interviews conducted by clinical psychologists using techniques to uncover hidden identity tensions that drive brand choice and explore emotional drivers.
• Team Empathy Training Training programs that teach brand teams to listen like psychologists do, building empathic listening skills and human-centric research capabilities inside client organizations.
• Brand Equity Measurement (Narrametric Analysis™) Brand power measurement that uses proprietary Narrametric Analysis™ to assess whether brands strengthen or undermine people's sense of self, redefining brand equity through an identity lens.
• Insights Journalism® Proprietary reporting methodology delivering clear, concise narrative reports that drive action, modeled after journalistic storytelling principles and leading with the most compelling new insight.
• Activation Sprint Rapid workshop methodology that compresses the research-to-action timeline, turning foundational insights into actionable ideas within a single day.
• HXi (Human Experience Insights) Customer Experience and Decision Journey Mapping approach using story elicitation techniques from psychology. Maps emotional flow through story arcs (opening scene, climax, resolution) to reveal contextual meaning embedded in touchpoints, used for CX, Shopper Experience, and Home Use Testing initiatives.
• RealityLive™ Communities Digital research platform that gives brand teams immediate access to insights through online communities, combining digital activities, webcam interviews, digital diaries, and text responses with real-time dashboards for qualitative research data.
• Syndicated Report Library Pre-packaged syndicated research reports covering various consumer insights topics, available for purchase by enterprise clients.

Quantifiable outcome

• Brands can build 'iconic brands' that earn enduring loyalty by understanding identity tensions and brand connection
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers12 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

AI capability7 records

Feature7 records

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• C Space: C Space is a private market research and customer insights firm serving Fortune 500 brands with proprietary qualitative and quantitative methods including online communities and ethnographic approaches. Like RealityCheck, it specializes in deep consumer understanding for brand strategy and long-term client partnerships.
• Hall & Partners: Hall & Partners is a strategic brand research consultancy with global offices that combines qualitative research, brand strategy, and proprietary measurement tools for major consumer brands. It is highly comparable to RealityCheck's positioning around deep consumer insight and identity-driven brand work.
• Burke, Inc. Burke is a strategic research and insights firm serving major consumer brands with custom qualitative and quantitative research. Its positioning around decision-focused insights and long-standing Fortune 500 client relationships makes it a direct comparable to RealityCheck.
• Gideon: Gideon is a boutique brand strategy and research consultancy using psychological and human-centered approaches to help consumer brands uncover consumer motivations. Its small scale, psychological depth, and identity-based methodology are highly comparable to RealityCheck.
• Kelton Global: Kelton Global is a market research and insights firm offering qualitative, quantitative, and strategic consulting to major brands. Its integrated approach to consumer research and Fortune 500 client base positions it as a comparable mid-sized research consultancy.
• Escalent: Escalent is a research and advisory firm specializing in human-centered insights, behavior change, and customer experience for Fortune 500 clients. Its blend of qualitative depth and quantitative measurement overlaps significantly with RealityCheck's methodology stack.

Broad incumbents

• Ipsos: Ipsos is one of the world's largest market research firms offering qualitative, quantitative, and integrated research services globally across all major brand categories. It is comparable to RealityCheck as a competitor for the same enterprise insights budgets but operates at vastly greater scale.
• Kantar: Kantar is a global marketing data and analytics firm offering brand equity measurement, consumer insights, and consulting to Fortune 500 brands. Its BrandZ and equity measurement work overlaps directly with RealityCheck's Narrametric Analysis™, though at much larger scale.
• NielsenIQ: NielsenIQ (post-GfK merger) is a major measurement and consumer insights provider serving CPG, beverage, and retail clients globally. It competes with RealityCheck for enterprise insights budgets and offers brand and consumer research at significantly larger scale.

Emerging players

• Qualtrics: Qualtrics is an experience management platform enabling brands to conduct consumer and customer experience research at scale using technology-enabled surveys and analytics. It is comparable as a competing research methodology for enterprise clients, though it emphasizes scalable technology over the deep psychological interviewing that defines RealityCheck.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/RCThinkTech
• Facebookfacebook.com/26
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/realitycheck

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles17 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Realitycheck