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.
Affordable and efficient design strategies
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
When it comes to design regular readers know that we firmly believe it can be a differentiating factor and it can add value to a business. Yet, design depends on trends, on taste, in other words on lot of external…
The secrets of market research: how to avoid pitfalls when creating a new venture. Part 2
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
In our first article of this series of 3 on market research, we dealt with the methodology of market research and with trends and competition analysis. Today we move to the analysis of demand and will go in depth on…
“Les Causses”, an example of successful retail concept
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Sometimes I feel fortunate. I do a wonderful job, have a lot of wonderful clients, advise a lot of very different businesses. And on top of that I meet inspiring entrepreneurs when going on market research tours. The story of…
One Day One Idea : use offbeat humour to sell your stuffs
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The marketing idea in brief Sometimes in worthwhile to be "offbeat", i.e. not to follow the rules (especially the marketing ones). Look for instance at the example of this store I came across while in Barcelona on Passeig de Garcia.…
One Day One Idea: the management of customer experience by Cerdan Heritage
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Santa Claus brought me this year some very cool “Cerdan Heritage” stuffs. If you don’t know about Cerdan Heritage, read the article we wrote a while ago about this SME started by Marcel Cerdan’s grandsons. The idea in brief Not…
What’s new in 2013: more advices for entrepreneurs with a focus on market research and innovation
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Looking back over our shoulders Looking back at 2012 we’ve written a lot (like in 2011) but took a pretty long break after the summer. With a sudden increase in workload we had to concentrate on clients’ assignments. This is…
L’imprimerie, a new kind of customer experience
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
I was fortunate to meet an atypical entrepreneur, Nicolas Guthart, who started several businesses that are highly complementary and propose an innovative value proposition for brands. How a new marketing concept was born To make a 10-year story short(er),…
How design can help increase your revenues
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The Paris Chamber of Commerce organized this year a contest dedicated to the best design initiatives in retail environments. As we explained in an earlier post we started taking appointments and visiting as many stores as possible that applied (even…
Examples of vertical integration and definitions
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Vertical integration is a relatively rare business strategy these days. Few companies still practise it because the time has come to reduce structural costs and cut costs. Among the large groups that continue to practice it, we could mention Samsung,…
Delhaize seems to be happy about the results of The Cube barcodes scanning campaign
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
When Delhaize launched The Cube earlier this year we were warning that it wouldn’t be as successful as expected. However in a recent press release Delhaize said it was a success and that online sales increased 22.6%. So in the…
Niche markets are sometimes larger than you expect. The case of Pedon.
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Pedon is one of those brands that has a solid market share but is not known very well, even in Italy, its home country. A manufacturer of dozens of private labels product, Pedon has also its own lines of products,…
Innovation at its best at SIAL 2012 food and drink fair
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
As every two years we visited the SIAL 2012, which took place in Paris from Oct 21st until Oct 25th, the largest fair for professionals in the food and drink industry. With almost 6000 exhibitors this fair is one of…
Meeting with a genius: Enric Ruiz Geli
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Sometimes you meet up with people that can inspire you for the rest of your life. This happened to me when I met Enric Ruiz Geli, the architect of the MEDIA ICT building in Barcelona 2 weeks ago. I’ll not…
How design can enhance business innovation
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
I spent 4 days in Barcelona in a workshop at ESADE business school practicing techniques used by designers to create. And the least I can say is that those techniques DO help make a difference in business. Let me explain…
SIAL deadline is approaching: innovations in the food and drink sector
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Every two years the world's biggest trade fair for the food and drink sector is organized in Paris. The SIAL will atract ca. 140,000 visitors and we welcome more than 5000 exhibitors (!) during 5 days, from Oct 21st until…
Rolls-Royce’s extreme segmentation
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Sometimes brands can go very far as far as segmentation is concerned. In the luxury business the growth path goes through Asia and in particular therough China. I recently came across a crazy example. Rolls Royce actually prepared a limited…
When the consumer interacts actively with the store window
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
To follow up on our latest post on future store windows, we publish today this example we found in Portugal in an ICT store. Located at the bottom of an office building in Lisbon, this store proposes a window with…
Do you want to do business or not?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
This post is a little be off-topic but it’s a kind of therapy for me. Writing is good for the peace of mind, isn’t it ? Over the last few weeks I’ve been disappointed several times by potential suppliers and…
From ready-to-eat to ready-to-prepare, a new product experience
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
An important aspect of the work of a marketing agency is that we must detect, track and follow nascent trends in a broad range of industries. This knowledge is required by our clients who expects from us that we have…
Has Delhaize already given up?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
We reported a few weeks ago about the innovation launched by Delhaize in Brussels to allow consumers to shop "virtually". The "Cube", as it is called, had been installed in the Central Station in Brussels and we were were skeptical…
For its anniversary Carrefour sells at prices of 50 years ago
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Carrefour launched last week a advertising campaign on Rome, Italy, that got a broad press coverage. To celebrate its 50th anniversary, Carrefour decided to advertise and sell a series of products at the prices of 50 years ago. A series…
What is the future of luxury brands in Asia?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Specialized media flood us with figures all the more crazy than the others. Prada plans to open 160 new stores in Asia to support its growth, PPR (Pinaud Printemps Redoute) plans to open 100 new outlets, the Swedish group H…
Lytro will fail and go bankrupt, unless …
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Do you know Lytro ? Most probably not. The technology behind this new product is still in its infancy and distribution of the product has remained confidential. Yet it is a disruptive technology. What is Lytro ? There is a…
Is Germany an ecosystem for SMEs ?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
In a recent column published in Le Figaro, Jean-Pierre Robin echoed a column by 2008 Nobel Prize of Economy Paul Krugman in the New-York Times. In his article Krugman was dealing with Apple’s industrial model, based on outsourcing. At the…
