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.
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.…
The criteria used by banks to give or refuse loans to entrepreneurs
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The post we dedicated to our latest experience with banks led to many reactions and –this is also an interesting byproduct- to a peak in terms of visits. We’d like to thank here the readers who retweeted or shared our…
Crowdfunding: the consequence of banks not financing startups
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
We have dealt already several times with crowdfunding on this blog. As I explained in a post not so long ago several alternatives exist (in terms of business model). I explained the model of Look&Fin (a relatively –yet with good…
Lessons learned on starting up a new store
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
On Nov 4th 2013 we attended the Grand Opening of Ethnik, a client’s project which became reality after 13 weeks of intensive work. In lower-ranked locations, leverage customer loyalty Ethnik will enjoy an AAA location that we found near the…
Have customers become unsatisfied about low-cost services and products?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
There is something strange happening on the low-cost market. There is a rising wave coming in our direction and we begin perceiving the first signals of it. Camping sites, Ryanair, Supermarkets are all experiencing the same problems on the market…
Moving a shop to another location also requires market research
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
When you set up a shop or small store, its profitability may be at stake when your immediate environment changes. Moving your store to another location may be the safest move to make but it requires that market research techniques…
Trendspotting: What is nomadism?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Market research is partly based on the investigation of past, current and future consumption trends that may support business activity. Trends research can be seen as a component of the PESTEL analysis which aims at studying all aspects of a…
