InSites Blog

As the Belgian representative for ESOMAR, Niels Schillewaert, our managing partner, is keeping an eye on the ESOMAR news. ESOMAR announces 2 awards:

Young Researcher Award (New!). Invites the bright young things of our industry to think outside of the box and apply their skills to issues of global relevance and importance. What is in it for you? Exposure & content!
- three finalists will present their research at the ESOMAR Congress in Montreux in September
- the winner will get a feature article in Research World, a publication on the Esomar web site and two free Esomar workshop attendances
Full information for the Young Researchers Award and how to apply can be found on the website: www.esomar.org/youngresearcher

The Excellence Awards for Standards of Performance in Market Research. This bi-annual and prestigious award recognises the highest contributions to the market research industry.
ESOMAR will soon be inviting ESOMAR members to nominate either an individual or organisation that they believe shows outstanding achievement that stimulates excellence at an international level. So please do get thinking! Who of your acquaintances (they need not be Esomar members) do you think has made a difference to the industry at the international level that you would like to see receive this prestigious accolade? The nomination procedure for the Excellence Awards will go live soon, so more information shortly.

It would be an honor if we have submissions & nominations for both awards from Belgium indicating that we do count when it comes to market research! If you want more information about ESOMAR initiatives in Belgium, you can get in touch with Niels at niels.schillewaert@insites.eu or +32(0)9 269 15 04.

3 out of 10 online over-50s in Belgium (374.000) belong to at least 1 social network. Facebook is the most popular social network in this target group: 47% know it and 14% are a member. Social networks are mainly used for private purposes and less so for professional purposes. For the latter, LinkedIn is the most popular network.  Belgium and the Netherlands are trailing behind the UK as far as the awareness and membership of social networks is concerned amongst online over-50s. All this has become apparent in market research carried out by InSites Consulting regarding awareness and use of social networks in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK.
“Our research clearly dispels the myth that social networks and interactive websites are used only by young people. Today Facebook is popular amongst our over-50s and this will be more so in the future. Many people in this target group realise very well that membership of a social network is necessary to communicate with young people and most simply really enjoy it,” according to Steven Van Belleghem, Managing Partner at InSites Consulting.
For more info, contact Steven on steven.vanbelleghem@insites.eu or +32 (0)9 269 16 07.

Download the full press release
Belgian results – Dutch results – UK results.

Last week I attended the Next Web Conference in Amsterdam which was really inspiring. It was nice to hear key note speakers such as Jeff Jarvis, Andrew Keen, Chris Sacca, Bradley Horowitz, Werner Vogels, Matt Mullenweg … talking about their vision on the web. I also enjoyed the presentations of the different start-ups. It’s nice to see that there’s a 2.0 world beyond Silicon Valley and that European entrepreneurs have a platform where they can show their product and business model (although some of them still need to think about their business model and long-term sustainability in my opinion).

To me, the main takeaways of the conference were the following:

Open standards and integration
Khris Loux (JS-Kit) talked a lot about dominators of the current web, open standards and integration during the unConference on Wednesday.

The current dominators are always using the same strategy: create a platform, make sure they have a lock-in and then just dominate the space. He gave the example of Facebook who created a social networking platform where the lock-in lies in the presence of all of your friends: you just have to create an account and it’s not easy to walk away. And they are further expanding their “walled garden” via Facebook connect, a smart mechanism to enlarge their web presence and drive traffic to Facebook. Another technique that dominators use is giving a competitor’s core revenue away for free (sort of speak). For instance, Facebook could attack Google by introducing an open-source social search on their platform or by sharing a larger chunk of their advertising revenues with users.

Big companies such as Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL are wounded and need all the help they can get to fight against Google, Twitter, Facebook… So many start-ups could take advantage of this opportunity and make some deals that weren’t possible one or two years ago. Khris also gives the advice to start-ups, publishers and companies in general to not let their business model depend upon one dominant provider or service, but to work together and integrate multiple parties. If your business is built upon this dominant force, then you might be out of business soon, because typically, these dominant forces reign for 5-10 years (who knows, Facebook might not be here in 5 to 10 years anymore) until a new king arrives.

Customer centricity as business model
Werner Vogels (CTO of Amazon.com) made a plea for the customer-centric business model. Everything Amazon.com does is in the best interest of their consumers. “If you don’t focus on your consumers, they will just go elsewhere” says Werner Vogels and he continues “customers just want to buy products at the lowest price and this is not going to change in the future”.

Amazon’s model (“the flywheel”) is built on a (1) broad offering at (2) the lowest price, because it drives customer experience and traffic. The increased traffic attracts more sellers resulting in a broader offering and reduced costs enabling Amazon to lower the prices even more. And there you go, you have a flywheel.

So that’s also a reason why Amazon opened up its platform to allow other merchants to sell via Amazon.com (leads to a broader offer). Even the cloud computing services (Amazon EC2) offered to other companies are a way to have more economies of scale and further reduce costs.

Goodbye social web, hail to the MEdia
The presentation of Andrew Keen, “l’enfant terrible” of the Internet, was one of the main highlights of the next web conference.

He started his presentation by showing a painting of Johannes Vermeer (“Woman in Blue Reading a Letter”) and stating that, although the current post-industrial age is fundamentally different from the industrial age, the same rules still apply when it comes to media in general.

According to Keen, the two key principles of successful media are intimacy and trust which are depicted in the picture. When you look at the painting, you see a woman that is captivated and deeply emerged in a conversation.

The current web 2.0 industry however is flawed because it tried to replace the old media but it just left an empty space and a “cult of amateurs” (must-read book published by Keen in 2003). Most web 2.0 start-ups don’t have a long-term business model which is unforgivable in the post-industrial age (e.g. YouTube for instance).

The time has come for new MEdia whereby technology empowers the individual and not the institutions. Twitter is the final nail in the coffin of 2.0 business models. Technologies such as Twitter empower smart talented people to voice their opinion and to build a personal brand.

Googlize your business to succeed
Jeff Jarvis was also present on the next web to promote his new book “What would Google do?”. His book isn’t about his love for Google (no he even stated that he loves all of us), but how other businesses could learn from the principles Google applied. After all Google has been one of the most successful companies in the past decade, so why not investigate how they did it.

I mentioned it before in this blog post, but Jarvis also stresses the importance of integration. Instead of creating everything yourself, you should be present were the people are. So create a platform, work together with other people and think distributed. Don’t be scared to open up your platform via API’s, but give the controls to the user.

He also states that mass markets are dead and companies need to realize that we live in a world of individuals where people want to voice their opinion and where companies should offer the means to let their customers do so, in order to survive (and to learn from their consumers).

Jarvis runs through his PowerPoint presentation (link here) to show us examples of applying Google in virtually every sector. For instance, why not have lunch in a Google restaurant where you can see what other people ordered, read user reviews of the different dishes, improve the chef’s recipes, get food recommendations that match your taste…

Deal with the overload
Matt Mullenweg (founder of WordPress and other successful web businesses) gave an inspiring speech on the necessity to deal with the current information overload caused by the web 2.0. According to Matt, it’s impossible for an individual to absorb all the information that is present on the web and he uses a brilliant analogy to prove his point: Solomon Shereshevskii, a Russian journalist, became famous because he could literally recall every word from a speech or conversation he had with someone. Unfortunately, his “gift” also resulted in various annoying symptoms such as trouble memorizing things which weren’t literal in meaning, problems recognizing people’s faces (because of little details that changed that weren’t visible to other human beings)…

The gift of absorbing literally all the information led to many troubles which is also the case for the current state of blogs and social media. We just need better ways to digest information, to capture and restructure information.

Matt’s vision is also supported by Bradley Horowitz (VP Google Apps) who argues that the ability of a user to record his whole life online is one of the biggest challenges for Google because there’s just too much information we cannot handle. Therefore Google needs to think about metadata and context.

Some E-goistic thoughts to wrap-up this post (hey, MEdia is the key of the post-industrial age)
I thought it was pretty funny to see such a lot of Facebook bashers and Twitter adepts at the conference. For many attendees, Twitter is the next big thing and Facebook is the enemy who tries to dominate the web or replicates Twitter with his homepage redesign.

I must admit that after 3 days of twitter brainwashing I even start thinking that Twitter is the dominant force behind the world (and no, not only the world wide web). However, I came to my senses when I went to an Italian restaurant on Friday with my colleague Tom De Ruyck. I took some pictures of the things we ordered to put them on my Facebook page and the waiter asked me why I took these pictures. And I said: “I just want to share them with my friends and colleagues on Facebook”. He looked at me and said: “what is Facebook and why would you put these pictures online?”

Then I realized that during the last 3 days I was part of a mini-society that was not really representative for the Dutch population (although it’s an innovative nation according to Keen). But it was fun to be surrounded by geeks like myself with Apple laptops, individuals (em)powered by Wi-Fi and people who like to tweet once in a while every minute (and few “nitwitters” who don’t understand what all the fuzz is about).

Finally, I must congratulate the organisation of the next web conference because they did a great job: interesting key note speakers, nice networking opportunities and smoothly glued together by the hosts! I couldn’t think of a better location to hold the conference than Amsterdam: relaxed people, cosy atmosphere, good food and sunny weather. I’ll definitely see you again in 2010!

If you like to share some comments, contact me Gianni.cooreman@insites.eu

Tom De Ruyck, our Connect Research Managers is nominated by the Blog Research Reinvented as one of the Market Researchers to Follow on twitter. This is a long-list of research professionals who you could follow, should you be on Twitter. The selected people are actual market researcher professionals, real people (no organisations or companies), twitter in English and mostly tweet about research. Read more about the competition or become a follower of Tom.

In the new issue of Research World, you can read our article on how memes evolve and spread amongst teenagers and how understanding memes is key to the success of youth brands. Annelies Verhaeghe, ForwaR&D Lab consultant, together with 2 of our managing partners, Joeri Van den Bergh and Niels Schillewaert are the authors.
Richard Dawkins first introduced the word ‘meme’ to discuss evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. A meme is a postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, that gets transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena.
In this project, we studied identity constructions and subcultures among Belgian and Dutch youngsters using memetics and mass ethnography, which employs innovative methods that combine principles from visual ethnography, nethnography and qualitative research with ethnographical elements. Our research revealed 11 subcultures and memes: fashion boys/girls, players/breezersluts, conservative yet party-oriented gabbers, nerds, gothics, emos, hippies, punks, altos, skaters and rappers.

Find out more about the results of the study, how memes spread and how marketers can use memes in branding and communicating with kids by reading the full article.
Download the full article:
researchworld04memesarticle part1
researchworld04memesarticle part2

For more information on this topic, contact Niels Schillewaert (niels@insites.eu).

Tom De Ruyck, ForwaR&D Lab Consultant, is one of the speakers on The Next Web conference later this week in Amsterdam. He will be presenting in Pecha Kucha style:  ’Together we build the future’. What’s it all about?

The world is transforming fast. One of the important drivers for this development is the ‘improved’ internet, with a wealth of information, communication and networking possibilities. It offers people new ways to share content in all kinds of formats and enables cooperation through different types of online platforms at blinding speed and low cost. Users have taken control over organizing content together. After all, the ‘Web 2.0’ (O’Really, 2005) hype has gained human relevance: as we have reached a point where everyone can have ‘a voice’. Sometimes this voice – enhanced through social media – becomes extremely powerful: consumers can make or break a brand or product and they are even able to force companies to withdraw or bring back specific products or services (Jaffe, 2007). This ‘power of the masses’ forces individuals, companies and communities to radically change the way they communicate, behave and live (Bentwood, 2007).
Understanding and making use of the mechanics and underlying drivers of this phenomenon is of ever growing importance. As A.G. Lafley, CEO & Chairman of P&G, put it: “Consumers are beginning in a very real sense to own our brands and participate. We need to begin to learn how to let go.” (Roberts, 2006). This shift opens a window of opportunities for smart companies who are willing to thoroughly listen to, and eventually co-create products and services with their consumers (Leadbeater, 2008). It is therefore mandatory that marketers and market researchers change the way they communicate, interact and engage with consumers and research participants. We believe that market researchers need to cede control and get more intimate with their participants and clients.

If you want more information on the full program of the conference, visit http://2009.thenextweb.com/agenda. For more info on Toms presentation, contact him on tom.deruyck@insites.eu

Ramon Pardo is Research Director & Country Manager the Netherlands at InSites Consulting, operating from our Rotterdam office.

What’s the new ‘buzz word’ in your domain? What does it mean and what do you do with it?
The domain closest to me is Customer Experience, and although in this domain everybody is talking about NPS (Net promoter score) I believe the new buzz word for this domain is going to be SMF (Social Media Feedback). SMF is all about using spontaneous customer feedback (which is already out there on blogs, forums and other social media) to evaluate and improve the relationship customers have with brands.

What are you most proud of?
All the things we have accomplished in just 10 months of being present in the Netherlands with the InSites Consulting office. The energy of my fellow team members Steven and Kristof to build the Dutch business in Rotterdam is really amazing. And it pays off! In the end, the most rewarding are the satisfied customers that we have been able to help in taking their businesses forward!

What do you want to warn marketers/market researchers about, now and in the future?
As researchers we need to understand that there are already many stories and opinions out there and in the future this will only increase. There will be less need for asking questions, we just listen to what customers are telling us spontaneously.
So stop asking questions and start listening to what the customer is telling us.

What has surprised you lately?
As a new entrant on the Dutch market I expected some resistance from current market research bureaus and associations. But nothing is further from the truth. It has been a total joy working and discussing with fellow researchers and encountering real openness amongst our colleagues in the Netherlands.

What did your morning look like today?
This morning I left for a day’s work in our head office in Wondelgem, Ghent, Belgium. I spent it with our R&D team on a conceptual discussion about human motivations. These are the things that really inspire me! Being an innovative researcher also means taking the time to take 2 steps back in order to make 1 leap forward. Having a dedicated R&D team that funnels inspiration really helps with this process!

Let’s end with a ‘quote of the day’!
An old one from Einstein but still too often the truth in current research: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. As an industry we must have the courage to change and reinvent ourselves constantly, if we want to deliver better recommendations to our clients.

Niels Schillewaert, managing partner of InSites Consulting, was one of the Pecha Kucha presenters at the Annual Conference of the Market Research Society (MRS) in Londen. They really liked his performance! His presentation has been shortlisted for the Best Conference Presentation Award. We still have to be patient until Monday 14 December, when the winners will be announced.