Create a discipline to become more creative
Sharing thoughts with our clients Nicolas and Christophe the other day, we discussed the very interesting topic of how to find time, as an entrepreneur, to be creative. We had invited Christophe and Nicolas offsite for a Design Thinking session and Christophe said the mere fact of being offsite and walking through the city with Nicolas allowed them to think and discuss, what is normally hard to do in their daily routines. I then realized that...
Lessons learned on a Design Thinking session: DO’s and DON’T’s
I’m just back from a Design Thinking workshop we organized in Bordeaux (France) for a e-commerce project. The least I can say is it was successful and extremely enriching. We had invited a group of people from different horizons representing the spectrum of the different stakeholders across the value chain. After a day of work new ideas emerged for the different distribution channels we considered during the session. As a sign of how worthwhile this workshop...
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 therefore logical that all players propose it. Only for our subscribers: exclusive analyses and marketing advice Email address * Subscribe By signing up, you agree to our Terms of use and privacy policy. "I thought the...
Visit at Stella Cadente shop: well worth a design award
Stella Cadente proves it’s possible to obtain outstanding results with (relatively) little money. We visited their unique store in Paris (opened in April 2012 on 102 Boulevard Beaumarchais) and although it’s relatively small (<50m²) it offers a wonderful experience. We were welcomed by Armand Perrier, the head of communication, who explained us the genesis of the brand and of the store. Stella Cadente is a fashion designer who was also hired for interior design. In her...
One Day One Idea : Aesop’s technique to get customers in the store
On our latest trip to Paris, after we interviewed Merci’s managing director Jean-Luc Colonna d’Istria, we went for a tour in Paris’ trendy area “Le Marais”. One of the stores that caught our attention was Aesop in Rue Vieille du Temple. Aesop is an Australian upper tier brand of cosmetics that you won’t find everywhere (it’s actually one of the two brands to have a corner shop at Merci). As you can on the pictures they...
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 while ago). We already dealt with these aspects here and we would like to give you here another –good- example of how products can carry a touch of fun and be extremely well aligned with your...
What does branding mean? The example of Miss Vicky Wine
Anne-Victoire Monrozier has an interesting entrepreneurial story to tell. Despite having little experience in the wine industry, she built a new wine brand from scratch. How did she succeed and is it really a wine brand? This is what we discussed with her in Brussels in January. Anne-Victoire, ala Miss Vicky, is well known for her blog “Miss Vicky Wine”. She is #26 in ranking of the most influential people in the wine industry. Not bad...
One Day One Idea: Let customers try your products and make them buy
We already mentioned the increased probability of selling a product when a customer has tried or touched it before. This principle is applied perfectly by Bodum, a Danish manufacturer of kitchen appliances and accessories. The flagship store they opened almost 2 years ago has testing area on the first floor where customers have fruits and vegetables and can use the Bodum products and cook if they wish. Advice for your marketing strategy Software editors have...
What you need to do to make your clients sign a contract within 24h
If you want to do business and land new customers, time is of the essence. Yet I see that very few entrepreneurs have this culture of responsiveness rooted in their DNA. Here is a story that happened to me last year and another one that happened this year. Example 1: what you should NOT do For one of our customers, I got in touch last year with a potential supplier who happens to share an office...
The Wine Business Innovation Summit in Brussels
The Wine Business Innovation Summit (WBIS in short) was organized on Jan 19th in Brussels to gather entrepreneurs and leaders of the wine industry and fuel inspiration among the participants. The least we can say is that it was successful. We were invited to this event back in 2012 a time when the organizers, Jens de Maere and Marc Roisin, were looking for someone to give an inspiring introductory speech. Unfortunately the tight agenda eventually didn’t...
The 7 profiles of social network users
The dynamics of social networks depend on their users. They can be analyzed according to their content creation/consumption profile. There are 7 profiles, which we analyze here. Contact IntoTheMinds research agency The 7 types of social network user Research into the use of social networks generally uses a segmentation such as that proposed by Forrester (see above). This is a practical model for an initial understanding of online behavior. User profile Description Insights Creators Publish blog...
Service quality and the role of employees in the customer experience
Previous posts have dealt on several occasions with the important topic of service quality. After re-reading what we had written we found out something important: employees are crucial. Employees are of course important to deliver the service quality that customers expect (although we still need to explain you what service quality really means). However over the last few years what we have noticed that firms tend to describe how employees should behave to deliver the requested...
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 variables that are not under your control. What was well designed yesterday may seem old-fashioned today. The ROI of design If design is considered an antecedent of value, then we should talk about return on...
The secrets of market research: how to avoid pitfalls when creating a new venture. Part 2
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 qualitative and quantitative research. Demand analysis This analysis aims at qualifying and quantifying the demand for your product or service. In other words your goal should be to “see” whether the market wants, needs your...
“Les Causses”, an example of successful retail concept
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 Alexis Roux de Bezieux During our last tour in Paris I met with Alexis Roux de Bezieux who launched “Les Causses” a tiny upscale proximity store selling food and drinks. Alexis was kind enough to give...
One Day One Idea: the management of customer experience by Cerdan Heritage
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 only are clothes of extreme high quality but the products come with a series of little details that enhance the overall customer’s experience: cardboard label with its vintage safety pin, Cerdan label stitched in each piece...
What’s new in 2013: more advices for entrepreneurs with a focus on market research and innovation
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 no excuse though as part of our company’s mission is to collect, analyze and diffuse knowledge. Fortunately enough there were a few events scheduled in the second half of the year that kind of forced us...
Loyalty and customer satisfaction in online commerce
A study by Taiwanese researchers recently caught my attention. It is studying the link between the online interface (that is, the website) and customer loyalty. Researchers have pointed out that while the satisfaction factor is considered one of the most critical factors in customer loyalty, it is, unfortunately, not the only one. Remember that satisfied customers can quickly desert when transition costs are low, and dissatisfied customers can remain loyal when transition costs are high. A...
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