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.
Off topic : a unique story-telling experience with kids
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Recently something happened to me that I found just amazing. It was one of those Aha moments that my friend Kevin Cottam wrote about in his book. This was a "story-telling" experience, the power of which is well described in…
Innovations in the postal sector. Episode 1: 3D printing
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
As announced in our post last week, time has come to give you a comprehensive view of innovations in the postal sector. Some innovative services may be known to you already (depeneding on where you live and how innovative your…
Increasing customer satisfaction through expectations management
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Managing expectations is key to increase (or just ensure) customer satisfaction. In this article we explore bit the mechanism of expectation creation based on one actual example : Coolblue How do expectations influence customer satisfaction You’ve experienced already it :…
Innovations in the postal sector: business models revamped
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The postal industry is unique. Its original business model is threatened and the industry is forced to reinvent itself. What can be observed there in terms of innovation is just unique. I met with Delphine Desgurse in Venice in late…
Western Union blue ocean strategy to increase loyalty
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
At the International Marketing Trends conference in Venice, Maureen Sigliano presented Western Union’s global loyalty strategy. Maureen is Vice President Global Loyalty Development & Customer Experience at Western Union and her speech, besides being highly inspiring, also shook up some…
These business cards are amazing
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Over the years I’ve met with hundreds (if not thousands) of people and have collected an impressive collection of business cards. While most of them are very classical and do not trigger any particular emotion, some of them have remained…
The innovation strategy of Edenred to conquer new markets
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
At the International Marketing Trends Conference in Venice, Damien Joannes of Edenred explained the strategy of his group to diversify its activities and conquer market shares. The key seemed to be in proposing services tailored to evolving needs of businesses.…
Do we do theoretical marketing?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
I was asking the other day a client's employee what he thought of the intermediary presentation we gave a few days before . He said he liked it very much because it had brought a fresh new perspective on how…
The right marketing strategy to sell products with a premium
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
While on business trip in Venice I stumbled upon wonderful postcards of Venetian monuments. I couldn’t resist the temptation and despite the price bought some to send to clients. Don’t shoot me dead … apparently such 3D pop-up cards have…
What is the value of a “Like” for your business strategy?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
An article on the excellent consonaute blog recently made me (re)think about the role of social media in B2C and B2B businesses. In this post Bruno Fridlansky reflects about the value of a “like” on Facebook and of “favorite” on…
Stop asking a NDA when asking an offer for a market research
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
We have recently a series of inquiries for market research assignments in Belgium where prospects asked for DNA to be signed before the first meeting. Here is why it makes no sense and why we’ll always refuse to do it.…
You’ll never guess which material Mondavi used to create sunglasses
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Extending your product range into different product categories is certainly a growth and profits strategy. Yet it must also be a good long-term strategy and with that in mind brand extension should remain meaningful. We examine today the extension of…
Market research : organic food « baskets »
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
In 2009 we analyzed the market (link in French) of organic fruits and vegetables baskets in Belgium . We anticipated that some of the players on the market would soon die. What did actually happen ? Consolidation happened In 2009 the…
Interview of Kenny Martineau, the million-viewer unsatisfied customer
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
If you don’t know who Kenny Martineau is, may we kindly suggest you read this article first. IntoTheMinds: Kenny, what does "customer satisfaction" mean to you? Kenny Martineau: As far as the Crédit Mutuel is concerned I can’t really understand…
Videos are excellent (and effective ways) to complain
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
In an earlier post we talked about David Carroll, a musician whose guitar was broken by United Airlines. The company proved very bad at managing his complaint and he found no other way than to compose a song (eventually seen…
Which perspectives for firms’ bankruptcies in 2014
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
More than 11000 firms went bankrupt in Belgium in 2013. Will 2014 be as bad as 2013 ? Bankruptcies all-time high in Belgium 11052 bankruptcies and 27912 jobs lost: those are the sad figures of bankruptcies in Belgium for the…
Johnny Thijs: Belgium looses all-time most successful CEO in postal world
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Political debates about the salary of bpost CEO will deprive Belgium of one its all-time most successful manager. As our article reveals, Johnny Thijs has outperformed all main postal operators CEO in Europe. Johnny Thijs salary: a political debate On…
24/05/2008 – 10/01/2014 : almost 6 years of blogging already
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
As most of you noticed we launched a new version of the blog just before Christmas. It’s now the third version in 6 years. The story of this blog on marketing started on May 24th 2008 as a blogspot presence…
How and why data analysis can help increase your profitability and fuel your growth
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
We are currently doing several big data-based assignments for very various clients and we’d like to share with you common mistakes that are often made by companies when considering analyzing their data. Mistake #1: where is my data? First of…
Here’s why Aigle’s new marketing strategy works amazingly well
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
One of the advantages of having a strong brand is that meaningful diversification can enable you to unlock growth. Here’s the example of Aigle, an historic brand of rubber boots which has diversified into side products. Aigle has manufactured its…
Looking back at one year of blogging
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Back in 2012 (on Dec 31st to be precise) I drew the conclusions of the past year and took some decisions related to the future of this blog. My commitments revolved around 3 axis : More structure in our blog…
How to: define your pricing
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
A question that comes always back from our clients is how to set up the prices of their products (this is less relevant for services). What I'm really astonished about is how some entrepreneurs go candidly about defining their sales…
No market research for Subway stores
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Unbelievable but true. Subway offers no help to its franchisees and in particular give them no hint as to where to set up their store. Subway even declares they have no idea as far as the best locations for a…
Marketing strategy: use humor to create differentiation
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Life is not easy every day and a way to differentiate yourself from the crowd is to use humor. Read below the example of the Comfort Hotel group which uses humor at all levels as a marketing strategy for differentiation.…
