Emotions detection in advertising: consumers still reluctant to give their data
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Advertisers have always been among the most creative professionals; not only on the content part but also in their use of the newest technologies to make their advertising messages more efficient. The use of eye-tracking dates back to decades, whereas…
Retail : Garconne et Cherubin offers “Pay-What-You-Want” option
"Pay What You Want" is a concept that allows customers to gain control back over the prices they pay. This technique is rather old and academic research dating back to 2009 showed the benefits of that approach. A few concrete…
Market research : Norwegians don’t want personnalized insurance
Insurance companies are getting increasingly personal and thanks to digitization they are proposing new tailor-made products. Two main applications can be found : Personalized health insurance Personalized car insurance We have explored in recent articles the different aspects of such…
More debt leads to lower customer satisfaction
It is well known that firms in the US use mainly external financing (debt) to finance growth. It actually is believed to account for 80% of financing. Yet, this external financing puts pressure on the firms and studies have revealed…
Imperfection can also be a source of delight and customer satisfaction
Who said satisfaction stems from perfection. Imperfect products can also lead to enjoyment and satisfaction. Take for instance the example of Merci, a premium retailer located in Paris that attracs trendsetters from all over the world. They just started a…
Can Big Data become a technique to promote transparency and equity
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
On this blog I often took a pessimistic look at Big Data, asking for a revolution in how firms build and use their algorithms. I called for instance for opening up the models behind recommendation algorithms and wondered whether our…
Measuring emotions for a better customer experience management
Can we measure customer experience ? This is a topic we already discussed here and the answer was no. Let me come with a new proposal that was addressed by Sensum during the CPDP 2017 conference : can our body…
How data vulnerability affects firms’ performance and how to remedy it
Everyone talks about privacy. But what is it really ? A recent article in French economical journal "La Tribune" built upon two recent BCG reports (here and there) on data protection and privacy to question firms' practices around data privacy…
How US elections shed light on the filter bubble phenomenon
Just do a Google search on "Filter bubble" and you'll be surprized of the many results returned. The recent US presidential elections have shed light on this phenomenon first hypothetized by Eli Pariser in 2011, and subject to much debate…
Nissan Electric Café : a popup store where you pay with energy instead of money
Nissan opened an original popup café to promote XStorage, a product made from recycled Nissan Leaf batteries that aims at storing energy for home usage. Under the hashtag #ElectrifyTheWorld Nissan tries to start the dialogue with citizens on alternative ways…
Market research : how news consumption is evolving
You know we love market research and in this article we'd like to discuss and comment the latest results published by Reuters in their worldwide market research on news consumption and mix them with some EBU media intelligence reports to…
Customer experience better than customer satisfaction to predict loyalty
We discussed recently the links between customer satisfaction, loyalty and customer experience. One of the conclusions was that, as of today, no reliable scale exists to measure customer experience. This doesn't mean however that nothing has been done on this…
Will Snap Spectacles glasses revive the augmented reality trend?
My brain suddenly made connections between two completely unrelated events : a market research report issued by App Annie, and an announcement by GetNarrative. App Annie predicted that connected glasses will be on the rise in 2017 and GetNarrative announced…
Customer satisfaction, customer experience and big data
Improving customer experience is priority #1 of top executives for the next 12 months (Lemon and Verhoef 2016). At the same time Big Data is on every serious company's agenda. How can Big Data contribute to creating a customer experience…
What are the latest conclusions of academics on customer satisfaction and customer experience ?
In the Journal of Marketing special issue " Mapping the Boundaries of Marketing: What Needs to Be Known", Lemon & Verhoef (2016) deliver 5 very useful conclusions on the state of customer experience and satisfaction research. These 5 conclusions, taken…
The role of Big Data on society : EBU conference
With fellow colleagues of EBU, I organized last week a conference entitled "Big Data and Society"at RTBF, the French-speaking public broadcasting organization of Belgium. As I wrote on EBU website, this event aimed at gathering together professionals from the broadcasting industry…
Amazon Go : this disruptive retail model hides a secret
Amazon Go is a 100% connected store where checkout are automated. Amazon Go is the convergence of at least 3 important trends : the first one is the diversification of Amazon into brick-and-mortar store the second one is a trend…
A roll to spread chocolate : really a good idea?
One at food fair SIAL 2016 featured inovations was a "choco roll". this product had been selected for its innovative packaging. In light of the debate on the failure rate of innovations in the food sector, we paid a visit…
How novelty and serendipity improve customer satisfaction
Product recommendations have enabled E-commerce websites to become a place where mass marketing converges with niche marketing. Recommendations are pivotal in enabling less popular products to be discovered by people who are the most likely to like them : this…
Dove opens first popup store in Paris : it’s superb
Dove opened in Paris its first ever popup store on 9 November 2016 in the Saint-Lazare neighborhood (105 rue Saint-Lazare) and the least we can say is that it was impressive. Unlike other popup stores, this one is just massive…
Are we living in the matrix ?
Are we already living in the matrix ? That question may seem odd to most of you. Not to some unidentified silicon valley billionaires who are secretly funding scientists to find a way to escape the matrix. I've been thinking…
Vitality offers Apple watch to monitor your activity : one more insurance into big (health) data
A few weeks ago we were discussing on this blog the trend of the insurance market to collect very intrusive data. I had the opportunity to raise my concerns at several conferences and got the impression that people were not…
Thierry Mugler popup store creates sensory customer experience
Thierry Mugler opened à popup store for a very short period of time to promote his new perfume #HateToLove. This ephemeral retail space was located 14 rue de Turenne in Paris. Despite the limited space available, Mugler managed to create…
Digitalization : why I will not use my insurance mobile application
Digitalization in the banking and insurance sectors has led to massive job cuts. In this article I discussed this trend in the banking sector and I debated on TV of this trend in the insurance sector (see here, in French).…
Artificial Intelligence : why we need respectful algorithms
Developments of artificial intelligence are a source of concern for several reasons. First of all AI threatens jobs, privacy and our perceived freedom. Second, 99,99% of the population doesn't really understand what AI is and where it originates. In today's…
Big Data : 4 types of filter bubbles
The question of the existence of filter bubbles (also called cognitive bubbles) is central to the fields of Big Data and algorithm design. Among different books, I was very much influenced by the Dominique Cardon's book on algorithms and society.…
Re-Belle jams : an ethical project against food waste
Here is a very nice project we discovered at SIAL 2016 : jams made from fruits and vegatables that were removed from the shelves and that should have thrown into the bin. It can be seen as the extension of…
Food and drink innovation: what are the success factors?
020At the food fair SIAL 2016 more than 2000 innovative products were presented. In other words some 10% of the world's yearly food innovation was concentrated in one place during one week. Amazing opportunity for a market researcher like me.…
Retail innovation : visit of Paulig Kulma coffee store in Helsinki
We just visited Kulma, the newest concept store of Finland-based coffee brand Paulig and it's an amazing place. This experiental store, combining a roastery, a bar, a coffee store, a barista insititude opened at the end of summer 2016 on…
SIAL 2016 : first conclusions from a busy week
Like every 2 years I spent a few days attending the world's biggest food fair : SIAL 2016. Each and every year this fait gets bigger and 2016 was no exception. SIAL 2016 remains a primary source of information for…
Made.com : retail innovation at its best
Want to experience a truly innovative store : pay a visit to Made.com, a brick-and-mortar shop which offers a truly unique customer experience. Introduction Made.com is an online brand offering design furniture at democratic prices through bypassing intermediaries. Their Parisian…
Big Data and Ethics : how recommendations work at Meetup.com
There have been many interesting talks at the RecSys 2016 conference in Boston. Yet, the presentation given by Evan Estola of Meetup was especially inspiring to me. It wasn’t the regular technical speech you may expect in that kind of…
Big Data : why ethics issues need to be addressed urgently
Artificial Intelligence is increasingly present in our daily lives : speech recognition, automatic translation, personal assistants, chatbots, recommendation algorithms. These technological advances are also subject to criticism and questions on ethics. What happens with our data, will algorithms govern us,…
Predicting consumers’ behaviors: the importance of explicit feedback
In today's article I'd like to present a new perspective on the evolution of consumer behaviors' modelization in the last 30 years or so. These modelizations are windely used in today's world of Big Data and recommendation algorithms. Introduction Understanding…
Banks are laying off : only because of digitalisation ?
ING : 3500 jobs cut. Axa : 650 jobs cut. BNP Paribas Fortis : 1000 jobs cut. As the Financial Times pointed out, some 100,000 jobs will be cut in the banking sector in 2016. Read again. One hundred thousands.…
RecSys 2016 conference : trends in recommendation on TV
The ACM Recommender Systems conference opened on 15 September 2016 in Boston (MA) with the RecSys TV workshop, one day dedicated to recommender systems in the broadcasting sphere. Presentations by Verizon, Comcast, Netflix, the University of Lisbon were the highlights…
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