The blog

The COVID 19 crisis has rocked our entire world, both personal and professional. We might not all be experiencing it in the same way. But as marketers, most of us are affected in similar ways: Either our business is thriving, or we are confronted with a downturn in demand. Both call for a reassessment of marketing strategies. At such times, do you focus on short-term or long-term growth?

The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has affected all of us out of the blue. It has had an unprecedented impact on our health and daily life. As the world is slowly waking up again, experts predict that we are facing a long period of “fighting back”. The good news? Innovation has never been more important and new ideas are coming in thick and fast. If covidinnovations.com is anything to go by, it appears that most innovations come from the world of healthcare. Today’s context is very much an opportunity for healthcare companies. The momentum is there and healthcare companies should act on it. The time has come to switch to a human-centred approach. Here are some tips to get back on track.

These last few Corona-dominated months have taught us some valuable lessons. Lesson one: times are even more unpredictable than we had ever imagined. We need to prepare for constant change, with a more profound impact than ever before. But speed of change in itself will not make the difference in the long run. Agility, the willingness and ability to reinvent oneself, will become hygiene factors (in the sense of always-on), but by no means a guarantee of success. To create a sustainable business model, marketers will have to combine agility with real added value for the customer. Lesson two: in such times, you can clearly tell the difference between two sorts of organizations. There is an opportunistic bunch that merely tries to exploit the crisis for their own benefit  by combining insincere “we care” messages with an obvious scramble to repackage their products and services in an attempt to capitalize on this drama. On the other hand, there is a group of organizations that are truly driven by genuine concern for their customers. You can recognize the latter group because they manage to fully understand their customers’ fears and desires even in these troubling times of crisis. This true connection between the organization and its customers leads to a relevant offering and communication and thus to a sustainable relationship.  

Let’s go back 10-20 years ago when you decided to get on board the ‘digital- marketing-train'. New platforms like Facebook and Netlog were all set to send your sales skyrocketing. Digital marketing was going to change everything. How is it going so far? You thought it would be easier, didn’t you? I mean, it started with one channel, now there are so many! Do you know where your money is going, and what you are getting in return? As half of Belgian marketers indicated in a recent study they're facing reviewed or delayed marketing campaigns, or budget cuts during these challenging times, keeping an eye on budgets and ROI are key. Breathe...We are here to give you a comfort blanket and provide you with some tips to increase your marketing performance. Let’s go!

The Best Brands Awards 2020 rewarded Belgium’s favorite brands in 21 different sectors. Via an online research campaign conducted by GfK, 5,000 Belgian households determined their “best brands” on two criteria: Share of wallet (Price Premium, Market Share, First Choice) & Share of soul (Awareness, Relationships, Cross-Selling Potential, Experience, Brand Image). The research is interesting, as it combines emotional brand factors with real economic success. Looking at the results, we can see that the top 3 are solid brands that score well year after year: Coca-Cola, Samsung & TUI. But what else was noteworthy? In this point of view, we share a deep dive into three interesting categories, always with a key take-away & an action you can take tomorrow to improve your own branding efforts, even during corona-times.

Over these past few days, our society has started to open up again – step by step – after weeks of strict COVID-19 measures. The weeks that have just gone by have seen the emergence of new habits in terms of the way we eat, shop, work, exercise, take care of our health, meet with friends, etc. Many of these behavioral changes will stick, at least until a vaccine is discovered, tested & approved, or herd immunity is attained. The time after that point is often called the ‘new normal’, a terminology which implies we’ll never go back to the world we knew before the outbreak of the virus. In this post, I’ll be zooming in on 4 trends that have an influence on how we will manage our health in that new normal, and how marketers working for pharmaceutical companies can take up the resulting challenges.

Christel de Boer, platform consultant at bol.com, shares key insights into how to grow your business by selling your products through an online marketplace. bol.com is one of the most successful marketplaces, selling over 23 million articles in more than 50 different categories, across Belgium and The Netherlands. Given the huge increase in e-commerce volume over the past couple of weeks, she also discusses how bol.com is supporting partners (brands, retailers or entrepreneurs who sell on the platform) and customers (consumers who shop on the platform) during the corona crisis.

Noukie’s is a Belgian brand specializing in products for newborn babies and children up to 8 years old. Their collection ranges from soft toys and baby clothing to blankets and sleeping bags. Noukie’s is a successful cross-border omni-channel player, selling in over 30 countries. They own physical stores in Belgium and France, run their own webshop and collaborate with marketplaces and e-tailers.  We sat down with Amaury Gilliot, E-commerce & Marketing Manager at Noukie’s to discuss their experience of working with marketplaces, and of course, the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on their business. 

With a total revenue of more than 8 billion euros in 2019, e-commerce in Belgium has never performed so well. This figure has witnessed a double-digit growth since at least 2015, the year The House of Marketing introduced the E-commerce Barometer. And we can expect a further growth in the coming years, not only because the share of online versus offline is expected to increase but also because there are still many opportunities ahead from cross-border e-commerce. So, given that Belgian webshops can still look forward to a bright future, I wanted to take a look at practices seen abroad that could help our Belgian webshops differentiate themselves in a creative way and thrive in a competitive landscape currently dominated by some big players. May these 9 examples inspire you for your e-commerce strategy.

COVID-19 has literally turned our world upside down over the past few weeks and is calling on us to change – a lot! From staying home and having video calls with your children interrupting to online yoga classes and… adapting your communication strategy. Here are our four key takeaways of things you should definitely look out for nowadays.