Market research news
The blog of the market research agency IntoTheminds lists opinionated articles, examples of alignment with marketing theory, highlights and bad buzz, carefully selected by Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, his team and influential experts.
Online market research reveals the #1 factor to reduce showrooming
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Showrooming is a massive problem for brick-and-mortar retailers. Customers visit stores but eventually make their purchases online. Operating a brick-and-mortar point of sale becomes more and more difficult. A scientific research reveals the #1 thing retailers should do to avoid…
The history of media resistance : from printing to social media through TV and radio
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Throughout history people have shown remarkable resistance to new forms of media, be it books, cinema, radio, TV or Internet. Today social media addiction leads to a new form of resistance. A new book by Trine Syvertsen sums up remarkably…
The 3 benefits of the new “Tap To Go” Ahold no-checkout supermarket
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Since Amazon has launched its no-checkout Amazon Go store (see our article here), other retailers are keen on experimenting the same type of innovation. Ahold Delhaize is currently testing its "tap to go" system in a "Albert Heijn To Go"…
Zalando free-returns policy drives customer loyalty up
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Online retailer Zalando has announced revenues of €4.5b in 2017, up 23% from the year before. Despite a slight decrease of its Ebit (from 5.9% to 4.7%-4.9%), profits before taxes will be over €200m. This is a very solid result…
Retail innovation: smart shelves enable dynamic pricing
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The biggest retail show on earth just opened its doors in New York. The NRF 2018 is the ideal place to observe market trends in the retail sector (professional shows in general are very good places to start market research:…
Market research combines Big Data and qualitative techniques .. 120 years ago
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Visualizing data has become a standard task and one essential component of data science today. But, haven't we forgotten how lucky we are to have all that data available and to be able to use it for various purposes ?…
If you are addicted to your social media, it’s because you suffer of FOMO
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
A recent research (Blackwell et al. 2017) has investigated the antecedents of social media addiction. In other words, what makes us look at Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter dozens of times every single day. Five variables were tested : age, extraversion, neuroticism,…
Which future for Borsalino ?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
One of the most iconic Italian brands, hats-maker Borsalino, filled for Bankruptcy on 18 December 2017. This story proves that even the most renown brands, those with the longest history (110 years of activity) are not immune against evolving market…
Ghost kitchens : the next disruption in the restaurant industry?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
I recently reflected on Deliveroo's and Uber's ghost kitchens which have appeared in various cities (read here and there) of the US and in London (read this article in the Guardian). Those ghost kitchen make perfect economic sense : margins…
New in 2018: step-by-step market research guide for all
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Happy new year everybody ! What an amazing year 2017 has been for us. We feel blessed to have carried out so many market research and Big Data projects last year : banking, retail, media, FMCG, luxury, IT, indusrail goods,…
Give me my time back ! I’m a digital slave.
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
It happens again and again and there is nothing I can do. The temptation is too big. I can't resist staring at my screen and losing my time watching and doing things that I don't really want to do. Rather…
Have black boxes led to bankruptcies in the restaurant industry ?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Back in 2015 Belgian authorities announced that B2C firms selling more than 25000€ per year in food (restaurants thus), would have to be equipped by July 2016 with a new model of cash register containing a black box registering all transactions. This,…
Marketing research reveals free apps are bad for business
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
A recent marketing research published in the Journal of Marketing reveals that offering a free version of an app reduces the speed of adoption of the paying version of the same app. In other words, you will reduce the odds…
market research : how do Europeans pay ?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
My mother-in-law is Italian. She hardly make two payments a year with her credit card. On my way to the University of Mainz a few weeks ago, I met a 64-year old taxi driver of Turkish origin who prouded himself not to…
Media convergence : 2-day workshop in Mainz (Germany)
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
I had the pleasure to be invited by the University of Mainz (Germany) to give a talk on the use of recommender systems in the broadcasting industry. The 2-day conference started on 16 October at the Chancellery of Rheinland-Pfalz in…
Market research : 190000 users surveyed on their connected future
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The Mozilla foundation released the results of a worldwide market research on digital lives. The survey was entitled "How connected are you?" and gathered answers from pretty much all countries around the world. In today's post I chose to focus…
Tips and tricks : using observation as a market research tool
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
In our latest article we dealt with an experiment carried out by the Virginia Tech University that used innovative observation techniques to study human behaviors when faced with self-driving cars. Today we want to dig a little bit more on…
Market research : how to study reactions to autonomous vehicles
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
This is one of the most difficult type of projet market research professionals may face: investigate consumers' behaviors in a situation that doesn't exist yet. In such situations ethnography (a qualitative market research technique) may be the right methodology to go for.…
Advertising : limiting cookie lifetime will destroy value
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Preliminary information : there are two competing rules for setting up maximal cookie lifetime. The European Commission (based a.o. on a proposal by CNIL) suggests to limit lifetime to 360 days whereas Google proposes 720 days. One year vs. two…
Is IoT a modern form of imprisonment ?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
In his book "Surveiller et Punir" ("Discipline and punish" in English) Michel Foucault shows the evolution of the justice system, from one that punishes the body (including painful death sentences or mutilation) to one that punishes the individual by restraining…
Opaque 3rd-party algorithms : a business opportunity
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
For some businesses algorithms have become instrumental to their strategy as a whole and their marketing strategy in particular. These algorithms are a well-kept secret and businesses have emerged that sell their knowledge on the inner working of those algorithms.…
Market research : authentication on media website, a growing trend
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
As announced in an earlier article of this blog, I organized a 2-day conference on Single-Sign-On at RTBF (read more here). From a market research perspective this conference allowed participants to clearly understand that SSO was a growing trend among…
behavioral economics : how beliefs influence consumers’ behaviors
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
As you all know the purpose of behavioral economics has been to show how irrational consumers' behaviors can be as opposed to the assumption of rationality from the economics field. This has resulted for instance in nudges as a sub-discipline…
How Delhaize Urban Farm fits into their marketing strategy
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Supermarkets Delhaize are known for a marketing strategy based on differentiation : premium products and a broader assortiment are part of Delhaize DNA. Delhaize has also invested for several years in its branding and has started positioning itself as a respectful brand.…
