I kicked out a prestigious prospect, it was the right thing to do.
Since 2021, the market research firm I manage has also proposed inbound marketing services. In the summer of 2021, we were approached by a well-known European institution as part of an even more well-known scientific program. The project’s purpose was to carry out a series of monthly podcasts. After a series of exchanges and despite the pre-selection of our offer in the leading tandem, I decided to withdraw our offer....
How to transform a 9m² office into a multifunctional space
How can you transform your office into a multifunctional space? Due to the lock-down, more and more of you are spending more and more time cooped up in your office. And because you can’t move the walls, you have to be creative to do everything you used to do in a much larger space. In this article, I will demonstrate how I managed to transform 9m² into a hyper-connected office, gym, podcast studio, and video studio. And all this...
COVID-19: 8 concrete impacts on the future of the non-food retail sector
This article is part of a series of analyses devoted to the medium and long-term impact of COVID 19 on different sectors of activity. The report below on the non-food retail industry is in line with another paper we have published on food retail in the post-COVID19 era. We updated this article in October 2020 with the latest statistics on the impact of COVID on the retail sector in 2020. To receive our most recent reviews, subscribe...
Where is the NERF coming from and why is it a marketing success?
Have you never heard of the NERF? There are several possible explanations: either you don’t have children, or they are no longer of an age to play with guns, or you have passed the age to play yourself. The NERF would appear to be played with at all ages, and especially in start-ups. Go to YouTube and see for yourself. There are plenty of videos of NERF battles in the workplace. The NERF is a pistol game that shoots foam...
Jean-Manuel Farcy gave up everything to become a craftsman…
In this 8th episode, Pierre-Raffaele, 10 years old, welcomes to his studio Jean-Manuel Farcy, to talk about his entrepreneurial career. Jean-Manuel is at the origin of the company Les Artisans Ciriers Bruxellois. He felt the need to change his life and sold his previous business in 2019 to devote himself to a more manual trade. He now makes photophores with his wife. In this video, filmed with Pierre-Raffaele, he explains his career...
The feminisation of street names: useful debate or a political artifice?
On 5 March 2020, the Secretary of State for Economic Transition in Brussels, Barbara Trachte, published on her LinkedIn account an interactive map of the street names of the Belgian capital. The data reveals that only 6.1% of the streets in the Belgian capital are named after women. It was learned at the same time that an ordinance was being prepared to facilitate the feminisation of street names through popular participation. The...
Discover all the facets of business with this 10-year-old child
New year, new project. At IntoTheMinds, we love offbeat projects, and we like to indulge ourselves. So in 2020, we decided to launch a project dedicated to marketing and entrepreneurship. Rather than always talking about business between adults and specialists, we decided to ask a child to lead the debates. Who better than a child to demystify marketing, innovation, business models, artificial intelligence, and all the other topics...
SEO and inbound marketing: a look back at our first video shooting
Thirteen years after the creation of this blog, two years after the launch of our market research method, last weekend, we concretised a project that we had been preparing for many months. Thanks to our latest recruit, Rebecca, we filmed our first videos and this experience was enriching. I want to share this experience with you in this article, by first placing the project in a broader SEO context. SEO and inbound marketing, the...
Market Research: how much does it cost?
Here is a question we are always asked: “How much does market research cost?“. And our answer is always the same: “The cost of any market research is the same as the price of a car. It can be a small city car or a Rolls-Royce, a second-hand car or a new one. It is up to you to decide”. That answer is not very satisfactory, is it? It is obvious that this is a tailor-made exercise and that the customer’s...
The secrets of conducting market research or how to ensure the success of your (future) business: Part 1
This article on market research is brought to you by the market research agency IntoTheMinds. It is the first of a series of 3 devoted to conducting market research (you will find the 2nd article here, and the 3rd here). We also remind you that in 2018 we wrote a comprehensive guide to conducting market research. You will learn, step by step, how to progress in understanding your market. This guide will give you the essential keys...
Retail design : Cartier store window Display Christmas 2017 in Paris
To follow up on our article on the Chanel store’s Christmas 2017 display windows, here’s another very nice example captured not far away from there : the Cartier store on Rue de la Paix (THE luxury street in Paris). For Christmas, Cartier had created some little scenes to display precious jewels in each of its display windows. Nothing really new in there (they do it regularly) but the attention to details was pretty...
I turned off notifications and it changed my life
you may have read last week’s post (the first of the year) in which I explained that I wanted my time back and wanted to liberate myself from addicative social networks. My plan to liberate myself from addictive social apps Here’s what I did and I arealdy see the changes in my daily routine : remove Facebook from my smartphone (on my tablet, which I use only in the evening, I moved to the last screen) turn off...
Big Data and Ethics : first sucessful meetup at DigitYser in Brussels
On 15 June 2017 my friend Philippe Van Impe gave me the opportunity to organize the first meetup in his newly opened Big Data temple in Brussels : DigitYser. And what a success ! The topic of this first Meetup at DigitYser was “Big Data and ethics“, an important topic in data science yet insufficiently covered. The idea for this meetup popped up during my talk at the Data Innovation Summit where people started tweeting...
Which market research method for a new concept, product or service ?
Recently I was approach by a large group in the hospitality industry which wanted to conduct a market research for a new concept they had in mind. This hospitality concept had been broadly sketched. What the client wanted was a market research to understand whether its idea could pick up, whether demand existed on the market for this concept. We were surprized to hear what competitors had proposed. Which market research methodology...
The human costs of buying from Deliveroo, UberEats and the like
Deliveroo communicated that the number of lunch deliveries in Belgium had increased 19 fold ! People start understanding that food delivery is not just a Friday night habit. It can also be experienced during the week and also at lunch. However consumers must understand that their consumption patterns may also have some less positive consequences. Consumers want everything, quickly without extra fee I draw a parallel between the...
Twinkind went bankrupt : another startup in 3D printing has died
A few years ago we discovered in Berlin a very hot startup : Twinkind. They specialized in 3D printed figurines in a quality never seen before. Their process was based was unique as we explained in this interview of its founder Timo Schaedel. Unfortunately Twinkind filled for bankruptcy in June 2016. The press realease (in German) doesn’t give much detail on the reasons of the failure but our guess is that the market was...
Probably the best business card ever created
Have you ever realized that business cards are too seldom used to leave an impression on your prospects ? I just found out what is probably the most amazing business card ever conceived. Read further if you want to know more. Leave an impression : get a creative business cards I recently looked at the business cards I’ve accumulated for the last 10 years (yes, I kept them all). Guess what … less than 10 out of 1000 deserve to be...
You’ll never guess what the purpose of this machine is
We are challenging you ! We bet you’ll never guess what this machine is made for. We spotted it in a luxury retail environment in Europe. It’s an incredible innovation that allows an innovation and never-seen-before way to communicate with prospects and customers. You have the weekend to brainstorm. The answer will be published on Monday on this blog. Stay tuned...
Not sure SnapChat will become a profitable business
71% of snapchat users are under 25. In a world where businesses try to attract and touch youngsters, this is a very unique selling proposition. Despite a market capitalization of 16 to 19b$ doubts still exist about the business model of snapchat and how it will monetize its users’ database. Will Snapchat be able to really leverage the value of its users’ database ? This is what will deal with in this blog post. Snapchat’s concept For...
How to drive Generations Y and Z back to traditional media
Traditional medias have a huge problem to get in touch with the Y and Z generations, which both have their own media consumption habits. A recent initiative launched by Egmont, a UK-based press house focusing on children, brings a possible solution to this difficult problem. A new magazine format for Generations Y and Z Egmont just launched a new magazine entitled Oh My Vlog ! which is dedicated to famous YouTubers, those guys like...
Shared Economy: the three radical changes of the last 30 years
The Shared Economy is one hot topic that all medias are covering massively those days. I recently got interviewed by a Belgian magazine for a special issue on the subject. On that occasion I gave them with my view on the evolution of a model that finds its roots in the local trading exchange systems dating back to the 1980’s. LETS : the origins of the Shared Economy Wikipedia will tell you that the idea to share time and materials...
Market research talent wanted : join our team !
IntoTheMinds is a market research company based in Brussels. We conduct market research in various industries and countries. We also perform profitability analysis that we combine with our marketing skills to make clear strategic recommendations. Most of our customers are SMEs and see us as trustworthy partners rather than mere providers. In the past 12 months we’ve carried out assignments in the retail, luxury, media, real-estate,...
Don’t know how to make the buzz? This initiative will inspire you.
Many companies (especially startups) wonder how to get media coverage. My answer is simple: amaze your prospects and go beyond their craziest expectations. I was amazed by the latest video published by Michel & Augustin. Although I’m not a big fan of their products, I must admit that they are masters in communication. The story in brief They got a call from Starbuck’s CEO office to ship their products for a presentation at the...
Big Data : Belgian website Realo displays social profile of neighborhood
The news made a big buzz on 17 June in Belgium. Big Data based website Realo.com unleashed sudden polemic after months of existence (see for instance this article in French). Their mapping of real estate properties displayed not only properties for sale, but also social indicators like revenue levels, education and unemployment levels and the percentage of foreigners. Contact us for our B2B studies Why did the polemic start The...
Service quality and satisfaction : when will real-estate agents change ?
Whether you are looking for a property to buy, sell or rent, chances are high that you have dealt with real estate agents. In Belgium real estate agents have a bad reputation and as we showed in a previous research, it was justified. Today we are reporting on 4 key recurrent problems on this market that foster incredible dissatisfaction. Read further and we bet you’ll recognize yourself Customer’s needs not understood The first...
Retail: 4 mistakes that will make your customers leave your store
In those days of showrooming (browsing shoppers) it has never been so important to ensure your customer is satisfied and stays in the stores. Those 4 mistakes will certainly make your customers leave your store right away. Make sure you avoid them ! 1. Waiting time too long People hate queues; be it for check out of to try clothes, you should avoid at all means that your customers must wait. Did you know that in France and Belgium...
Big Data: TAM Airlines creates unique customer experience
Let’s stick with our new habit of having a shorter Friday post. Thanks to our good friends at Creapills, we learned about the initiative of TAM Airlines leveraging Big Data and Data Analytics to increase passengers’ satisfaction. TAM Airlines used a Facebook Connect to get personal information on its passengers. For those of you who don’t know what a Facebook Connect is, it’s a popup that enables a website to capture data from your...
Explore evolving trends with Google Ngram
I was attending a Big Data and BI conference last week in Paris; one of the presenters, Tom McDonnell of Monterosa, presented an amazing graph. It showed the usage of the word “interactive” in books published between 1900 and 2000. This graph showed without much need for discussion that our world is becoming more and more interactive. The purpose of this post is certainly to convince you of this trend, but rather to introduce you to...
87% customer loyalty : the magic recipe to make billions
In the last years, I’ve been very cautious in explaining to our clients how to increase customer loyalty. When I was giving conferences 10 years ago the equation was still “easy” to solve: more customer satisfaction led to increased loyalty. This equation doesn’t hold anymore. Yet one company achieves an incredible loyalty rate and drives billions out of it : Apple. Apple achieves what is probably the highest...
How to train thousands of employees on customer satisfaction with a serious game
How to inform and train all your employees on the importance of customer satisfaction ? This is very complex when you have hundreds of employees, even more when they are not in direct contact with the customer. This challenge was solved very well through gamification by Axa France. Why satisfaction of your customers does matter I’m not sure it’s really necessary to explain something so obvious, but for those that may not have read...
HNGRY : visionary entrepreneur launches new retail concept in Antwerp
Sometimes you don’t need to go very far to meet some inspiring people. In the past I used to go abroad to meet visionary entrepreneurs (like Enric Ruiz Geli in Barcelona or Jean-Luc Colonna d’Istria in Paris); this time I made a great encounter in Antwerp. I was planning to spend an hour in Antwerp discussing a new retail concept. I ended up returning home 5 hours later. Let’s meet together Thierry Peeters, the founder of HNGRY....
Habits : why it’s so difficult to get rid of them
My recent meeting with fellow blogger Bruno Fridlansky leads me to test today a new format of shorter posts. As I explained in an earlier post I’m convinced people have little time to read complex pieces of text. And the articles published on this blog are certainly not the easiest to read: we always try to have at least 300 words (possibly 500) for SEO reasons. That’s why I believe in vlogging, that’s to say video...
Will Facebook become your entry door to the Internet?
Facebook strategy is crystal clear. Facebook wants to become the only website you’ll be using to enter and navigate the Internet. Never before has the message been so clear: everything must go onto Facebook and all other websites should become useless. Facebook wants to concentrate the entirety of the Internet traffic. To find out how the Internet may look like in 10 years from now, read further. Facebook will become your...
DHL, Amazon and Audi partner to revolution the supply chain
If you are in e-commerce, you know that delivery is a crucial part of the customer experience. If you want your clients to be satisfied and to repurchase from your site, you’ll have to make sure the delivery runs flawless. Yet, flawless delivery (on time) is not enough anymore : it needs to be free-of-charge and the trend is towards quicker and same-day deliveries. Customers’ expectations are more and more to get their order the same...
TUZZit : 8 great online tools for your startup
Many would-be entrepreneurs we meet strive to either look for or even make up the visual and creative collaborative tools that will ease their team thinking process. This difficulty further increases when those teams are decentralized. Business model canvas, 5 forces of Porter, Important / Urgent matrix … TUZZit offers a collection of visual models to work with creativity online. Initiated by a Belgian startup, TUZZit...
5 trends that threaten old broadcasters
Old-fashion medias have never been more threatened than today by new consumers’ behaviors. Television channels are certainly in the middle of the storm and must quickly adapt to consumers aged under 30. Read further to discover 5 trends that will re-shape the business models in the coming years. Trend 1: television is not King anymore Recent studies show that younger watchers between 14 and 25 prefer watching TV on a computer...
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