Alex Gibson discusses perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility with ESOMAR Congress 2009 speakers Jeremy Pace (Consumer Science Specialist – Nestlé Research Center) and Niels Schillewaert (Managing Partner – InSites Consulting)
Want to find out more about the congress? Visit www.esomar.org
http://www.research-live.com/multimedia/video/when-i-run-the-research-industry/4000751.article
Let’s keep our fingers crossed for the Best Presentation award!
Each year at the ESOMAR General Congress three awards for best papers are presented. InSites Consulting got nominated in the category ‘Best Paper Overall‘, aka The Fernanda Monti Award, with our paper on ‘The longest day – Cultural differences in CSR‘.
An international Jury, including the President of ESOMAR, the Chairman of the Programme Committee and three appointed individuals have the deciding vote. During the closing session on Friday 18 September 2009, the winners will be announced.
Congratulations to our ForwaR&D Lab and Qualitative Research team for their great efforts!
Find out more about the full program of the Congress!
Digital Marketing First (DMF), formerly known as Customer First, is an initiative of InSide Digital Media. It’s the biggest interactive marketing event in Belgium, with over 50 workshops and international speakers. One of the hot topics of this year’s edition is Social Media.
Tom De Ruyck (Senior Consultant ForwaR&D Lab InSites Consulting) will share the key findings of the InSites Ultimate Twitter Study, ‘To tweet or not to tweet‘. This study helps you understand the medium, Twitter: Is it a nice research ‘tool’ or a gimmick? What’s the buzz on Twitter?
Other social media experts presenting their expertise are AdNerds with their keynote session on ‘Future on the web’, Jo Caudron (Dear Media) and Clo Willaerts (Sanoma Magazines Belgium).
The event takes place on Thursday 22 October 2009 in Tour & Taxis (Brussels).
Find out more about the program and register for free at www.marketingfirst.be
Joeri Van den Bergh, InSites Consulting and Dirk Van Kemseke, Levi Strauss Europe will be presenting at the ESOMAR Qualitative Conference. This year’s edition takes place in Marrakesh in November 2009.
Understanding generation Y’s definition of ‘authenticity’ for the Levi’s brand.
The classic way of looking at the concept of ‘brand authenticity’ is defined by components such as: origin, history and heritage of a brand. Levi Strauss, known as the inventor of the denim jeans with its Levi’s 501 model positioned as the ultimate original jeans, wanted to find out modern interpretations of authenticity. More specifically they doubted the relevance of their brand heritage and history to the target group of young consumers (13-29 year olds) aka the brand and marketing savvy Generation Y.
In this interactive presentation (based on online quantitative research with youngsters in Belgium and the Netherlands) a new definition of authenticity is constructed. Since youngsters are the consumers (and thus market research participants) of tomorrow, the presenters will also illustrate how this new definition affects the way market researchers will have to interact with this generation.
Find out more about the full program and register online.
Hakim Zemni is Research Director at InSites Consulting.
What’s the new ‘buzz word’ in your domain? What does it mean and what do we do with it?
I believe that the beginning of the 21st century will be remembered as the ‘in-between era’: a lot of socio-cultural, economical and even international and political domains show revolutionary new opportunities, technologies, possibilities, applications and viewpoints but most of them have not quite reached maturity yet.
These mini evolutions collectively set the scene of an imminent marketing paradigm revolution: the current explosion in online social media use is only at the start of an international landslide with major impact on traditional media usage, the idea of a corporate ‘ecolomical’ wave (i.e. economy and ecology as allies instead of enemies) has proven its seductiveness but still has a long way to go for it to reach the masses, the growing need of consumer interaction and co-creation with brands is clearly there, but brands have not yet fully deployed their marketing weapons to facilitate this, discounters are selling premium brands whilst premium brands are dumping their prices, the financial crisis is over or is it not?, etc… . This makes people somewhat uncertain and in a continuous survival modus: they are very resilient in their choices underway.
What are you most proud of?
Of our counter-cyclic investment strategy: in the eye of the financial storm InSites Consulting opened offices in Geneva and London because we believe in ‘no guts, no glory’. We have been dodging the impact of the economical crisis successfully so it is very motivating to work in a company that manages to do that and that likes to take bold international initiatives on the way.
What do you want to warn marketers/market researchers about, now and in the future?
As I believe that ultimately the evolutions of the ‘in-between-era’ will result in the disappearance of old school marketing and the start of new paradigms, methods, practices and techniques to reach, seduce and interact with consumers, it is important to understand consumers and their day-to-day behavior in terms of this new setting: survivor-consumers are playing the waiting game before massively investing in one or the other viewpoints, technology, etc… so it is about us taking decisions for them: getting the basics right today and being faster in this than competitors is the challenge we are facing and the key to future success.
What has surprised you lately?
Something I learned from a recent survey: 91% of Belgian students have access to the internet in the comfort of their own student home/house/room. Why has this surprised me: as I wrote my thesis on the impact of the internet back in 1998, I had to rent an hour of internet in the ‘academical it-center’ at the time to have access to ‘the net’. An hour worth of internet was the equivalent of reading 10 WebPages containing only text at the time. It literally took about 6 minutes to surf from one page to the other. 10 years later almost all students have constant access.
What did your morning look like today?
I am expecting a baby so I went to the gynecologist today with my wife. Everything ok but the baby looks a bit underinterested in its appointment with the world as it was due last week. We’ll see… Patience is a good virtue. After that visit, I had a brand image presentation and brainstorm at a client I’ve been working for 10 summers in a row now. In short and without revealing the content: we are looking for ways to tweak a brand image that has been extremely stable for over 15 years so it is quite a challenge to facilitate ‘change’. But our recommendation was very concrete and down-to-earth to achieve this as efficiently as possible. Consequently, after the presentation, I immediately wrote a proposal for the same client as one of the European hypotheses needed quantification for the Belgian market J
Let’s end with a ‘quote of the day’!
I just clicked on ‘random quotes’ on www.quotationspage.com and here’s what captured my attention:
“The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal”.
So I apologize 
Hakim Zemni
+32 9 269 15 26 hakim.zemni@insites.eu
Great video on the impact of social media on our daily lives and the way we do business today!
So far, almost 300 marketers have completed the ‘Meet the Joneses’ Test! Over half of the participants passed the test, with scores ranging between 18 and 70 out of 100. What’s this Test all about?
Are you really connected to your consumer?
To come up with eye-opening insights on the daily life of today’s consumers and to understand how you can keep up with “the Joneses”, InSites Consulting (together with Stichting Marketing and NIMA) invites marketers to complete the “Meet the Joneses” Test.
WIFM?
- New consumer insights and finding out how connected you really are.
- Your personal ‘connection’ score and a benchmark with other marketers.
- A full report showing all the conclusions when the test is finished (October), personally sent by e-mail.
- A chance to win a prize and step out of your own daily life for a while.
Find out your score and do the ‘Meet the Joneses-Test’ yourself. Just click here. The test will take about 10 minutes of your time. Have fun!
The number of Belgian registrations on professional networking sites, such as LinkedIn, has risen sharply these last months compared to 2008.
But why are these professional networking sites so popular?
The increase of Belgian registrations on networking sites has several reasons, according to Tom De Ruyck Senior Consultant ForwaR&D Lab InSites Consulting. “First of all, a lot of people become aware of the business opportunities of professional networking sites. It is the perfect source for headhunters and HR-managers, people that search the entire Belgian network looking for talent.”
Another reason why LinkedIn gains popularity is the possibility to update your curriculum vitae. “Your online reputation becomes more and more important. When you apply for a job, the HR-manager will first Google your name and LinkedIn makes sure your professional details are one of the first search results.”
Furthermore the LinkedIn system helps you collect references. “Personal branding is becoming essential in today’s life. Especially in times of crisis it can make the difference between a job and a rejection.” says Tom De Ruyck.
(Source: De Streekkrant Nationaal, Sebastiaan Bedaux – Roularta)
Annelies Verhaeghe, Senior Consultant at the ForwaR&D Lab of InSites Consulting has been nominated for the ‘Young Researcher of the Year’ Award by Esomar. This award calls for the best young minds in the market research industry (aged under 30), talented, sharp, incisive people determined to be ground-breaking and to show that they can help to make a better world. At the ESOMAR General Conference, Annelies will present her nethnography study about the impact of aging on consumers’ day-to-day life. No need to say we are proud at InSites Consulting that Annelies has received this nomination! More information on the award can be found www.esomar.org. For details about the study you can contact Annelies directly at Annelies.Verhaeghe@insites.eu.
