Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Neuromarketing Conference In Paris


I attended couple of weeks ago a neuromarketing conference held in Paris during the MD Expo.

I did not know much about Neuromarketing before coming to this event. My knowledge was mainly based on the Neuromarketing blog, which I actually read quite often.

The conference had a prestigious panel: 
  • Henri Kaufman was the host, and animator of the conference.
  • Pierre Gomy  Marketing director at France Millward Brown France, which talked about the company's experiences held in Great Britain.
  • Mark Van Rymenant  founder of Netway, a Belgian company specialized in Neuromarketing since 1997.
  • Marie de Linage Europe CRM manager Sony, which talked about her experience with neuromarketing techniques.
  • Bruno Teboul, an expert of neuromarketing, soon to get his Phd, he is studying the usage of neurosciences for marketing purposes around the globe. He is also the author of "L'Absolu Marketing",  which explains all the new marketing trends from the big data to neuromarketing. I haven't read it yet, but I am planning to soon.
Here are some highlights of the conference:

Read Montague's Study
Neuromarketing has really emerged in 2003, when Read Montague studied thanks to IRM scans 50 volunteers to taste Coke and Pepsi sodas. It appears that out of these 50 people, 49 prefered Pepsi while blindfolded, but once people knew which brand was which soda, the results were reversed. The study showed how brands could change one product perception. Its since this research thanks to IRM that neuromarketing really started.


The button to buy
There is no real trigger in the brain that you need to push for someone to buy. Though there are some well known now zones that have a key role during the decision making process. There is such a high complexity in the brain that the interconnections between the different zones makes it impossible to resume the action of neuromarketing by simply pressing one button.

The brain map
Thanks to the important work of research around neurosciences, scientists have been able to set up a map of the brain. There are 52 zones in the brain that have been noticed. Each zones have different roles. Actually, the researches have also established that human brains are similar to other human brains by 99%. 
 It is thanks to this map that we are now able to understand and make experimentations through IRM and use them.

Why Neuromarketing Matters
  • 5% of what we do is conscious
  • 95% is unconscious
Marketers have spent years to work on the conscious part, trying to understand the logical aspect of customers' decision making process. But now neuromarketing techniques allow to explore the other 95%.
Also:
  • 85% of decision made are based on emotions
  • 15% by rational thoughts.
How That Works?
There are 3 techniques that are used:
  • Eye Tracking: We use technologies following the eye movements in order to see what catches the attention of someone.
  • Electrophalogram: The most used techniques
  • IRM: The most precised one, but the most difficult to use. 
About the IRM technique, most of the time it is used only on 6 to 8 people, because it is pricy, difficult to get (you need to use hospital material), but also because it is enough to have usable results.
Even though it is the most famous technique, it only represents 15% of the researches conducted.

Culture, Sociology and the Brain
There is a certain "plasticity" to the brain. Indeed, people from certain cultures may have been used to certain cultural or social things that may shape the way they percieve things. Even though studies seem to tell that there is no particularity. For example, the color red is associated with stopping, because the color red has been chosen for the red lights. You may change the red light color for yellow, it will take a while for people to adapt and the red to get back to a normal color. 
So far I believe it is too early to say if culture and society may impact neuromarketing results.

Sony Case's Study
Sony Europe had issues with the different local marketing departments to implement the European guidelines about Sony's brand content. Most of the time, local branches argued that the European guidelines were sometimes not adapted to local market. Sony decided to use neuromarketing in order to test then its messages and brand components thanks to the eye tracking techniques. Through small tests, on some emailing campaigns, they experienced great results, which pushed them to experiment more. It helped Sony to rationalized its European guidelines, thanks to the neuromarketing results they got. 


I will post soon a new note about what I think about neuromarketing. The aim of this article is to sare with you the great knowledge I got thanks to this conference.



Sunday, April 28, 2013

Carrefour: Un Combat Pour La Liberté: Mon opinion

Il y a quelques semaines de celà, j'ai eu l'occasion de rencontrer Yves Soulabail lors d'une conférence se déroulant à Paris Dauphine. Yves est bien connu du monde de la distribution pour son ouvrage "Carrefour un combat pour la liberté". Je connaissais aussi déjà bien son oeuvre, visitant très régulièrement le blog Carrefouruncombatpourlaliberte.fr

Le Pitch

1976, Carrefour existe depuis plus de dix ans, et la croissance folle du début est difficile à maintenir. Carrefour est en pleine remise en question. Cette année, notamment Etienne Thil, directeur marketing et communication, et les directeurs de Carrefour, décide de lancer les produits libres, qui deviendront bientôt les MDD, qui à l'époque est une véritable révolution dans un monde de la distribution dominé par les marques (Nestlé, Coca Cola, etc...).

Ce que j'ai aimé
  • Énormément de moments historiques de la distribution française (fondation de Leclerc, début de Carrefour, lancement des MDD chez les concurrents) sont présentés dans ce livre.
  • L'incroyable précision et le détail des données du livre. On y apprend les volumes, les chiffres d'affaires, les marges, etc... Bien évidemment, elles sont très loin de celles de nos jours, mais dans un monde de la distribution où il y a énormément de secret, c'est formidable d'avoir pu aller si loin.
  • Un ouvrage rare, qui donne beaucoup d'informations sur l'histoire (même avant les produits libres) de Carrefour. Ces origines, sa manière de fonctionner, les hommes importants. Carrefour reste, malgré les problèmes actuelles, une formidable histoire, qui part d'une petite épicerie il y a 50 ans à devenir la 2ème entreprise mondiale de distribution.
  • Une vrai leçon de bon sens et de principe pour les distributeurs. Il remet bien en place ce qui est vraiment important pour un distributeur, le volume, l'image prix, les basiques, la gestion des hommes... Etc. Une très grande leçon, que chaque direction de grande distribution devrait garder en tête.
Ce que j'ai moins aimé
  • Parfois, le livre est un peu brouillon, car très axé sur donner de l'information "brute" (notes de réunions, articles, données chiffrées, etc...). Ce qui rend la lecture parfois difficile, sur certains moment, surtout au milieu.
  • J'aurai aimé avoir plus d'informations sur Bernardo Trujilo, car je sais qu'Yves est le spécialiste de ce génie très méconnu du monde de l'entreprise. Il a façonné l'ensemble de la distribution mondiale, néanmoins il reste quasiment inconnu du grand public. Néanmoins reconnaissons que cela n'était pas le sujet principal du livre. Peut être pour un autre livre?
En résumé
Ce livre est une formidable leçon au sujet de la grande distribution. Il retrace avec détail et précision les phases de lancement des produits libres, et explique bien dans quel mesure ce lancement a changé profondémment le monde de la distribution, mais aussi donné une longueur d'avance à Carrefour.

Je le recommande à tous professionels de la grande distribution.

Monday, April 01, 2013

Auchan's Entreprise Feedback Management: Leveraging Store's Feedback

Enterprise feedback management is an important part of a comprehensive customer relationship management strategy. EFM aims to collect and organize customer's feedback from whereever it may come. With nowadays over connected world, feedback may come from in store comments, emails, mailings, social media, phone calls, blogs, among others.

I have been reading in Linéaires an article about the CRM manager at Auchan Jérôme Desreumaux, one of the largest retailer in France, selling mostly fast moving goods. Each Auchan stores in France welcome every day on average 10 000 different customers! Therefore leveraging the informations these customers may give can be a powerful tool in order to improve the commercial concept. Auchan recieves every year 200 000 feedback. It is important to know how to give meaning to these feedbacks, but also it is very important to know how to collect those.

What is interesting in this article, is the split between the different sources of feedback:
  • 25% comes from store comments left in a ballot by customers
  • 25% comes from employees from the frontdesks who type in customers' comments
  • 25% comes from notes taken by store and department managers
  • 25% comes from other media, such as mailing, emailing...
What is fascinating, is that still 75% of comments come from the store! Indeed, in retail, stores remain the main medium of communication. 

It is always more difficult to get these insights, as it is difficult to automate feedback in store. It is interesting to see how Auchan succeeds in getting so many feedback from stores.