The blog

“The ocean is rising, but so are we”, “What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic”, “I’ve seen better cabinets at IKEA”. The sight of young and old raising their voices and signs during climate protests has become a familiar one over the past months. And then there’s the latest #TrashTag challenge that has taken social media by storm. Initially targeted at bored teens, the action encourages people to share pictures of littered areas before and after clean-up. As society recognizes the environmental challenges we face, consumers are becoming more mindful of their buying behavior. The #TrashTag challenge.

I’m Laurent, a marketer with a passion for sustainable and conscious entrepreneurship. My story? I discovered how marketing works about 6000 kilometers away from home.

La troisième édition du Baromètre E-commerce – qui cartographie le paysage en ligne belge à partir des données de transaction des commerçants – met en avant une progression du marché de l'e-commerce belge à 7 milliards en 2018, soit une augmentation de 20 % par rapport à 2017. Le nombre de commerçants en ligne a également augmenté de 18 % et dépasse désormais les 24.000 unités. The House of Marketing, filiale de Quanteus Group, et SafeShops.be, l'association belge du commerce électronique, ont aujourd'hui présenté leur nouveau Baromètre E-commerce. Le but est ici d'offrir des informations issues des commerçants en ligne eux-mêmes, et ce au travers des données transactionnelles des commerces en ligne. Ces données sont fournies par les PSP, les prestataires de services de paiement. Ceux-ci disposent en effet des volumes de transactions des commerces en ligne belges soumises à la TVA, quel que soit le mode de paiement utilisé (cartes de crédit, applications bancaires, Bancontact, PayPal, ...). Le Baromètre E-commerce est unique en raison de cette approche axée sur le commerçant et non pas sur le consommateur. Il offre une vision approfondie des dépenses effectuées auprès des webshops belges. Le paysage belge en ligne est ainsi cartographié sur la base des données fournies par les principaux prestataires de services de paiement CCV, Europabank, Worldline, Ingenico ePayments, Mollie, Multisafepay, ING et Icepay. Ces opérateurs représentent une part de marché estimée à 87 % du volume des transactions effectuées en Belgique.  

De derde editie van de E-commerce Barometer – die het Belgische online landschap in kaart brengt vertrekkende vanuit transactiedata van handelaren – toont aan dat in 2018 de Belgische e-commerce markt groeide tot 7 miljard, een stijging van 20% ten opzichte van 2017. Ook het aantal online handelaren steeg met 18% naar meer dan 24.000.   Vandaag maakten The House of Marketing, onderdeel van Quanteus Group, en SafeShops.be, de Belgische e-commerce associatie, de resultaten van de nieuwe E-commerce Barometer bekend. Uitgangspunt is informatie vanuit de online handel zelf via transactiegegevens van de webshops. Deze data worden aangeleverd door betaalproviders of PSP’s, Payment Service Providers. Zij beschikken over de transactievolumes van Belgische btw-plichtige webshops, ongeacht het betaalmiddel (kredietkaarten, bank applicaties, Bancontact, PayPal, ...). De E-commerce Barometer, uniek omwille van de invalshoek gericht op de handelaar zelf en niet de consument, biedt een fijnmazig inzicht in de online bestedingen bij Belgische webshops. Het Belgische online landschap wordt in kaart gebracht op basis van de gegevens aangeleverd door de grote betaalproviders CCV, Europabank, Worldline, Ingenico ePayments, Mollie, Multisafepay, ING en Icepay. Samen vertegenwoordigen zij een geschat marktaandeel van 87% van het transactievolume in België.  

Everyone knows you have to follow your dreams. But who dares to take the leap? I’m Charlot, a burgeoning daredevil that exchanged the legal profession for a career in marketing. Did you know what you wanted to become at 18 years old? I didn’t. So I followed the path of many others and started a law degree. The reason? It was a broad field of study. One that spoke to me on many levels, but also gave me the opportunity to keep my future options open. After my graduation I became a lawyer-trainee at the Antwerp Bar specializing in privacy and intellectual property. But something felt off: I was a brightly colored fish in a rather gray legal sea… I still had so many different interests I wanted to pursue. And when I noticed that the business of the client often appealed more to me than the actual legal advice, it became clear that life had a different path in store for me.

Every year, numerous quantities of research try to estimate the size of the Belgian e-commerce market. Most of the time these high-level estimations are derived from the consumer perspective to tell the story on how Belgian e-commerce performs. We believe, however, that there are always two sides to a story, and that we should also pay attention to the merchants’ perspective. Therefore, The House of Marketing together with SafeShops.be explores this black hole of merchant-based facts through the E-commerce Barometer. As opposed to other research, the E-commerce Barometer brings forth accurate information on Belgian e-commerce based on real transaction data, in collaboration with payment service providers in Belgium. A payment service provider or PSP is a third party that facilitates and helps merchants in the acceptance of payments.

Put a group of marketing consultants together, mix it with enthusiasm and energy – and what do you get? An epic skitrip! Let us take you back to our THoMski 2019. At The House of Marketing, we like to go the extra mile, and this year we took it quite literally. After multiple trips to the Vosges, we decided to head to Austria! With a group of 47 enthusiastic employees from different entities of the Quanteus Group – The House of Marketing, BrightWolves and UPTHRUST – we traveled to Mayerhofen. The 12-hour bus ride couldn’t spoil the fun: we enjoyed our trip to the fullest. Looking back with a smile on 3 days of skiing, snowboarding and après-skiing, topped up with a pyjama party and jenever-pong game! Watch our brief after-movie to get a glimpse of our legendary skitrip.

Customers are or should be, at the heart of every organization. We segment them to personalize our offering and approach them differently to satisfy their needs most efficiently and effectively. However, in this day and age, are we really doing the best we can? Are traditional segmentation techniques still the way to go, or are we missing something? We all want to get personal and communicate the right message at the right time at the right place to the right person. This is where traditional segmentation techniques might not be effective enough to enable organizations to offer this kind of personalized experience. We all understand the value of segmentation as a means to better target our effort, but should we continue using segmentation when technology and big data has paved the way for hyper-personalization and one-on-one offerings?

2019 will most likely be another year of growth for most organizations, as the global economy is on the rise. Many businesses, however, are already facing the next challenge: how can they grow faster, or at least as fast as their competitors?

The parsnip hype (‘pastinaak’ in Dutch) recently put online advertising in the spotlight again. A Facebook ad, aimed at female fans of the cooking show Dagelijkse Kost living in Eeklo, encouraged them to buy parsnips. The sale of this vegetable rose significantly in two local supermarkets. At the same time De Correspondent published a contradictory viewpoint, based on the eBay case. This company stopped all Google advertisements in 2013, but after eight weeks sales figures remained stable. Conclusion: for years eBay had been spending millions of dollars on useless online advertising. Does online advertising work or not? The truth lies in the grey area. To reinforce this conclusion, we spoke with Koen Pauwels, Distinguished Professor of Marketing at the Northeastern University and member of our company's advisory board. He followed the discussions closely and carried out a study on online advertising. Based on his knowledge and our experience, we analyzed the viewpoints in the article in De Correspondent.