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…
The innovation strategy of Edenred to conquer new markets
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?
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
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?
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
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 »
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…
Videos are excellent (and effective ways) to complain
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
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
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…
How and why data analysis can help increase your profitability and fuel your growth
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
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…
How to: define your pricing
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
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
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.…
Lessons learned on starting up a new store
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…
Moving a shop to another location also requires market research
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?
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…
Will Ryanair really improve service quality to satisfy its customers?
Michael O’Leary, the arrogant yet charismatic CEO of Ryanair, announced last week that the company would strive to improve customer service. "We should try to eliminate things that unnecessarily piss people off" and "A lot of those customer services elements…
Emerging trend on the food market : raw chocolate
Among the 200+ exhibitors of the Gourmet Food&Wine fair in Paris on Sept 23rd and 24th 2013, our attention was caught by Rrraw, startup launched by Frédéric Marr to exploit the raw chocolate market trend. After having sold his previous…
« Clic and walk » reinvents the customer satisfaction survey
The social media rise has launched a new era in customer satisfaction measurement; twitter, Facebook and the like have allowed marketers to collect more primary data to evaluate whether clients were satisfied or not. Yet the multiplicity of sources makes…
How a postcard can create high customer satisfaction
Here's one example of how a company can increase its customers’ satisfaction and loyalty by paying attention to details. This example is inspired by Werner Bruyns, the CEO of Coolblue whom I met at a bpost event earlier this year.…
The market of recycled devices grows with the crisis
There are some markets which benefit from the crisis. The market of recycled electronic devices is one of them. With the growth of smartphones and a diminishing buying power, consumers tend to look increasingly for bargains in the second-hand market.…
Get inspired by concept stores to improve your marketing strategy
I was called in mid-July by the Belgian TV Channel RTBF to explain what concept stores are. The 3-minute television report was filmed –obviously- in a concept store located in Brussels : SMETS. I went back to the store later…
Some innovating ideas around customer satisfaction and loyalty
I recently attended an internal BPost event where externals speakers went to give a speech and inspire the audience. This event had been organized at the initiative of BPost COO Peter Somers and it was a great opportunity to better…
BSE Academy: first prize awarded to bugs’ food project
The first prize of the BSE Academy was awarded on 12 June to Brecht Vanhecke and Jasper Peeters for their novel food project. Brecht and Jasper’s project revolves around insects and aims at transforming them into food that can be…
Mono-product marketing strategies: the exemple of l’Atelier de l’Eclair
There is no such difficult thing than to start a successful business with only one product. Yet, we have noticed recent initiatives in the retail sector of innovative mono-product marketing strategies. We visited last month “L’Atelier de l’éclair” in Paris,…
Avoid biased results when measuring customer satisfaction
Measuring satisfaction of clients is a widespread practice among large companies as we showed in an earlier post. A new practice is however to link employees’ salaries to customer satisfaction scores. We’ve had the opportunity to witness this practice in…
Will Boco revamp the food-served-over-the-counter sector?
BOCO is one food-served-over-the-counter concept that is currently attracting a lot of attention in Paris. Launched by the Ferniot brothers (Simon is a business guy who has sold his latest food complement company; Vincent is a well-known journalist and TV…
How to decide on the location of a store when doing market research
Location is a key criteria to study within market research. The HORECA sector (HOtels-REstaurants-Coffee shops) has paid a heavy tribute to the crisis. Official sources announced in April that 1945 companies in this sector had filed for bankruptcy in 2012…
How to use customers’ habits to increase customer loyalty
Customer satisfaction is now subject to controversy as far as its effect on customer loyalty is concerned. As we recalled in a presentation on loyalty strategies, customer satisfaction accounts for a maximum of 10% in customer retention. What this means…
What you should know about (online) surveys and market research
There is one key message that we repeat again and again to entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs when we coach them: sending an online survey is not doing market research. Market research is far more than that. Yet, this message seems…
Merci : the recipe for a concept store that attracts millions of visitors
The Merci concept store, located in Paris, has been a pioneer in responsible retail since 2009. This article explores its unique model, the challenges it faces in 2025, and the lessons to be learned from its approach.
50% of companies do not apologise when they respond to a complaint
Research conducted on 226 companies showed that 50% did not apologize when dealing with a customer complaint. This is the opposite of good customer satisfaction practice.
Is the future of online pure players in brick-and-mortar shops?
The question may seem provocative but the reign of pure online strategies may slowly come to an end. Consider the following 53% of all EU retailers are selling through the internet In Ireland, Denmark and the UK, between 88% and…
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