In banking, where trust is built slowly and customers rarely make decisions impulsively, brand growth depends on patience and consistency. For Zrinka Jugec, Group Marketing Director at Addiko Bank, this means resisting the temptation to constantly reinvent the message. Instead, brands need to remain recognisable, communicate their positioning repeatedly and ensure that the same underlying values are reflected across every customer touchpoint. Operating across Central and So

Blog post by Hannah Das & Lisette Kruizinga-de Vries, based on the master thesis of Hannah.

For Deniz Barut, Head of Digital Marketing, Media & dCommerce Home Care Europe at Unilever, brand growth is not driven by one single lever. It comes from connecting the full system: investing in brands for the mid to long term, understanding changing consumer needs, turning those insights into relevant innovation, and measuring whether every euro is being used in the right way. In Home Care, where habits, channels and expectations are shifting quickly, the brands that win are

We are proud to share that The Growth Decision, written by DVJ Insights CEO Lucas Hulsebos, is among the 10 nominees for the PIM Marketingliteratuurprijs 2026 (Marketing Book of the Year) in the Netherlands! The Growth Decision by Lucas Hulsebos For 20 years, PIM (Platform Innovatie in Marketing), the Dutch platform connecting marketing and innovation, has presented this award to recognise authors who contribute new knowledge to the field and encourage marketers to rethink th

Brand Growth comes from Penetration, doesn't it? Few ideas have influenced modern marketing as strongly as the principle that brands grow primarily by increasing penetration. Research associated with Byron Sharp and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute has challenged the traditional belief that growth mainly comes from turning existing customers into increasingly loyal buyers. Instead, the evidence suggests that larger brands generally have more buyers, including many light and occas

What if some of the assumptions behind modern marketing and market research are fundamentally wrong? For Colin Moyer, his background in anthropology, archaeology and Buddhist theory offers a different perspective on how people make decisions. Colin sees striking parallels between these ideas and findings from modern neuroscience, challenging some conventional assumptions about consumers as stable individuals with fixed preferences. Instead, he argues that people are constantl

In a world where marketing is constantly evolving, it is easy to get distracted by the latest trends, tools, and technologies. Yet, for Alexander Shmelkov, Director of Global Brand Tracking at IKEA, true brand growth still comes down to mastering the fundamentals. In this conversation, he shares how IKEA balances long-standing principles with modern challenges, from penetration-driven growth to the impact of AI, and why staying grounded is more important than ever. Growth Sta

London, 7 October 2026 – DVJ Insights has been shortlisted for the 2026 MRS Media Research Award for its new approach to measure the brand-building contribution of influencers and content creators within the total media mix. The recognition is one of two MRS Awards nominations for DVJ Insights this year, alongside a nomination in the Application of Analytics category. Moving beyond engagement metrics As investment shifts towards social platforms, influencers and content creat

London, 7 October 2026 – DVJ Insights has been shortlisted for the 2026 MRS Application of Analytics Award for research investigating which concept-testing metrics validly predict in-market success. The recognition is one of two MRS Awards nominations for DVJ Insights this year, alongside a nomination in the Media Research category. Which metrics predict in-market success? Concept testing plays an important role in deciding which innovations companies launch and invest in. Ye

In a region as diverse and dynamic as Latin America, brand growth depends on more than simply having a strong product. Consumer behaviour is evolving rapidly, driven by digitalisation, changing media habits, and new technologies that are reshaping how people discover, evaluate, and purchase products. For Francisco Muñoz, Head of Insights & Analytics LATAM at Philips, growth starts with understanding consumers deeply, anticipating how their behaviour is changing, and adaptin

Marketing has never had more data, tools and ways to measure effectiveness. Yet for Elsa Ögren, Head of Marketing Science Northern Europe at Snap Inc., that does not necessarily mean marketers are making better decisions. After starting her career on the media agency side and spending seven years at Meta before joining Snap, Elsa has seen measurement evolve from traditional brand metrics, through the rise of digital attribution, to today's more fragmented landscape. Her view

With 170 years of heritage and a presence in almost 80 countries, Riso Gallo has built its international growth on a clear principle: know what the brand stands for and stay disciplined in how it delivers that position. For Cristiano Corsini, Export Marketing Manager at Riso Gallo, sustainable growth comes from combining strong brand positioning with deep consumer understanding, relevant innovation and commercially focused execution. In the UK, one of Riso Gallo’s largest i

London, 24 September 2026 – DVJ Insights has been shortlisted for the Quirk’s Award for Global Marketing Research Project for its work on the NIVEA CONNECT COMPASS, a global research programme developed together with NIVEA to better understand loneliness and human connection. The nomination follows DVJ’s recent ESOMAR Award for Best Social Impact Research for the same project, marking another major international recognition for the research and the team behind it. Combining s

When GLÜCK entered the German fruit spread market in 2017, the category was already highly saturated. Shelves were filled with established brands, consumption habits were mature, and most products followed the same conventions: around 50% fruit, traditional labels and tall, narrow jars. For Manuel Rodriguez, then Head of Marketing at Göbber and responsible for GLÜCK from 2019-2025, the opportunity from the team was not to fill an obvious gap in demand, but to redefine what

London, 22 September, 2026 – DVJ Insights and VodafoneThree have been shortlisted for the Quirk’s Award for Groundbreaking Research Project, recognising a new approach to brand tracking that moves beyond reporting performance to help explain what drives it. The partnership started with a shared ambition: to develop a more meaningful understanding of how consumers relate to brands and to make brand tracking more useful for strategic decision-making. Together, VodafoneThree and

The term artificial intelligence has become increasingly difficult to use precisely. A predictive model, ChatGPT, an image generator, a recommendation algorithm and an autonomous coding agent can all be described as AI, despite operating in very different ways. Technically, artificial intelligence also has a much older and broader academic definition that includes approaches such as rule-based systems, search and planning. In everyday business use, however, AI increasingly re

As marketing becomes increasingly data-rich and media continues to fragment, growing a brand has never been more complex. For Javier Acebo, Insight Director at Publicis, the answer lies not in choosing between short-term performance and long-term brand building, but in balancing both. Leading the insights function across Publicis’ media and creative agencies, Javier works closely with strategists to help brands make better decisions through research, measurement and interpret

London, 17 September 2026 – DVJ Insights has been shortlisted for three Quirk’s Awards, including Marketing Research Supplier of the Year, recognising the quality and added value behind the company’s continued growth. Alongside the agency nomination, DVJ has been shortlisted with VodafoneThree for Groundbreaking Research Project and with NIVEA for Global Marketing Research Project for NIVEA CONNECT. Quality as a driver for growth For DVJ, the three nominations are an importan

For Helen Hewlett, Senior Insights Manager for the Away From Home channel at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), brand growth starts with understanding where consumption is moving next. As consumer behaviour shifts across channels, occasions and lifestyles, the role of Insights is no longer simply to explain what happened yesterday. It is to help the business anticipate where future opportunities lie, distinguish meaningful trends from short-term noise, and translate growi

Generative AI gives advertisers something they have always wanted: more creative output, produced faster and at lower cost. But a new question is emerging. What happens when consumers know that AI was involved? That question is becoming increasingly relevant as European transparency requirements around certain forms of AI-generated and manipulated content come into effect. The discussion therefore moves beyond whether marketers can use AI. The more interesting question is how