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…
Three criteria to differentiate good and bad prospects
Over the years I have developed a sixth sense for recognizing uninteresting prospects, those who consume your time and will have a zero ROI. Criterion 1: The emergency factor A prospect contacts you. It is urgent. He/She needs your offer…
Be responsive: a business strategy that works … if you apply it!
Here’s a true story that many of you have already experienced and which resulted in a incredible feeling of frustration. It’s the story about looking for a company to provide a service or a product you need. Sending a request…
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…
The soon collapsing delicatessen market
After visiting the Gourmet Food & Wine fair in Paris a strange feeling remains in my head: that of an endless repetition. I got bored. From booth to booth noting emerged as really different; everything was alike : exotic spices…
Black money hunt makes Ferrari sales drop
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Tax evasion remains very popular in Italy (and in Belgium too by the way) but since January 2013 the Monti and Letta governments are testing a new approach. The latter , as you will in this article, continues to fuel the great…
Ryanair’s CEO better at provocation than Abercrombie&Fitch’s CEO
Mike Jeffries, Abercrombie&Fitch CEO, was under fire this summer about his declarations on excluding people from his targeted clientele. Back in 2006 he declared : "We go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive, all-American kid with a…
BNP Paribas Fortis: how their hotline make them lose customers
Websites have become nowadays a tool to attract and retain potential customers. They either allow the visitors to perform certain actions by themselves or get a trigger to call an agent. This mechanism is especially important in B2C transactions where…
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.…
Even century-old firms die … because they don’t adapt
Darwin was right … those who adapt will survive and in the race to survival smaller species seem better placed. This seems also to be true for firms. The biggest ones are not –always- the most resistant to shocks and…
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,…
Abercrombie & Fitch accused to sell only to thin people: good or bad marketing strategy?
The press covered extensively the charges against Abercrombie & Fitch to sell only "small" sizes to avoid getting obese clients among its customers. The famous American brand has recently opened a store in Brussels, which has reinforced the local impact…
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.
Have supermarkets signed their own death warrant ?
The latest stats show that prepared shopping carts tend to help supermarkets sustain their growth. Whereas in France supermarkets (-0.2%), hard discount (-0.4%) and small urban stores (-0.2%) all lost market shares, “drives” gained 1% on the same period. It’s…
3 steps to align your online and offline experience with your global brand positioning
Brands sometimes take advantage of their positioning to launch some funny initiatives and propose a funny communication. Yet, when the positioning doesn’t match the communication, it can backfire (remember for instance the example of this bank that we gave a…
Consultants, learn how to be flexible!
Flexibility and goodwill are of the essence when you are an entrepreneur and when you work with entrepreneurs. Being in the 2 categories, I pay great attention to those qualities when I meet a candidate for a job at Intotheminds.…
Affordable and efficient design strategies
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…
How design can help increase your revenues
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
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,…
Niche markets are sometimes larger than you expect. The case of Pedon.
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,…
Do you want to do business or not?
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
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…
What is the future of luxury brands in Asia?
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 …
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 ?
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…
Drawing some parallels between Volkswagen and Swatch: two very similar strategies
If you are reading economic newspapers those days, chances are high you come across articles on Volkswagen and Swatch. Both groups are profits champions and analysts just love them. On the one hand Volkswagen became the world’s #2 car manufacturer…
Low-cost and high-profits: business models reshaped
In times of economic crisis it is well known that price sensitivity increases. One visible consequence is that low-cost business models like Ryanair, Aldi, Colruyt, Ikea and the like are doing very well. They outperform actually older players and you…
Unicredit explicitly warns investors about national currencies reintroduction scenario
Very few people have noticed it but readers of this blog will be aware of an event that recently took place in Italy, when Unicredit launched a capital increase on the market. The bank edited a 300-page leaflet which sums…
Pay What You Want
In 2009 a paper was published in the Journal of Marketing on a new concept called “Pay What You Want” (PWYW) which seemed to be interesting for firms. This research showed counterintuitive results, namely that consumers will exploit their control…
The coffee capsules war will not happen
Sara Lee launched last year its Nespresso-compatible capsules. In Paris only 100000 samples were given for free. In August Sara Lee announced that they had reached the 100m$ revenues with this product. Still, the question remains for me whether this…
1855.com : how long can they survive?
Life is sometimes hard, especially for losers. Within a few days I read two different articles about 1855.com. The first one was published in the magazine "la Revue du Vin de France" which is a magazine specialized in wine and…
A PESTLE analysis may have helped the eco-construction sector
One of the decisions the Belgian government took to reduce the debt was to cancel the 40% tax deduction on works carried out to reduce energy consumption (isolation, double-glass windows, …). The consequence of this decision will be to change…
Meet first the legal requirements first, then speak about customer service: the Mobistar case
First of all please allow me to mention than by sharing this post on Facebook and twitter you will help other individuals. The purpose of this post is to write about my fight against Mobistar in an attempt to enforce…
Is this what marketing in the wine industry looks like?
A friend just offered me a bottle of wine. It was just wonderful. Thank you. What surprised me was the tag attached to it, which claimed the 94 points obtained from Robert Parker in the Wine Advocate. Well, ok everyone…
What is the marketing positionning of Blancpain (Swatch group)
Blancpain is a famous watch brand owned by the Swatch group which, in my opinion, deserves attention for several reasons. Blancpain is first of all a brand with history; not only an historical tradition of watchmaking that goes back to…
Sara Lee vs. Nespresso : missed target
When I attended the “stratégie clients” show in Paris two weeks ago, I heard Julien Morel, the COO of Nespresso, explain how Nespresso was able to keep its market share in spite of new players like Maison du Café (Sara…
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