A New Standard of Intelligence We have grown used to AI as a smooth-talking oracle: confident, responsive, often correct and occasionally overconfidently wrong. Yet it has always remained sealed. Even at its best, the large language model has been a closed circuit. It speaks but does not show. It appears to know but cannot explain how. This opaque fluency has defined the past generation of AI systems. They are impressive in performance, yet ultimately unaccountable in nature and fully reliant on trust.

Oslo, May 1 ,  2025  - DVJ Insights continues to expand its international consultancy team with the addition of Alexandra Brendan in Norway. With deep roots in both qualitative research and entrepreneurial ventures, Alexandra’s appointment reinforces DVJ’s commitment to combining local expertise with global brand growth strategies. Over the past 25 years, Alexandra has built a diverse career spanning the research, publishing, telecom, advertising, and IT sectors. Having worked at both the agency and client sides of the industry, she brings extensive experience as an all-around researcher and consultant. Most recently, Alexandra worked as an independent insight strategist, partnering with clients to uncover strategic opportunities for brand development. Her deep specialisation in qualitative research is complemented by a growing interest in advanced quantitative approaches. Alexandra: “I’m excited to join DVJ and be part of an organisation that is driven by both innovation and strong academic foundations. While my background is rooted in qualitative research, I’m really looking forward to broadening my expertise across both qual and quant—especially by learning more about DVJ’s unique Mass Qual methodology." Léonie Koning, Global Commercial Director at DVJ Insights, says: “We’re thrilled to welcome Alexandra to our Nordic team. Her diverse experience and entrepreneurial mindset bring a valuable perspective to our work. As we continue to grow internationally, Alexandra will play an important role in helping our clients unlock brand growth through locally relevant and globally inspired insights.” This appointment marks another step in DVJ’s broader international expansion strategy. With a growing team of consultants across Europe and research partnerships around the world, DVJ is uniquely positioned to support brands with deep local understanding and global reach.

Emotions are powerful predictors of consumer behaviour. Yet understanding and measuring them effectively is a complex challenge. In a recent webinar hosted by DVJ Insights, Professor Dr. Bob Fennis from the University of Groningen shared the academic state of emotion measurement. Lucas Hulsebos, CEO of DVJ Insights, followed by translating these insights into real-world, scalable applications.

Retail media, including digital in-store ads, is gaining importance for brands aiming to drive sales at the point of purchase. While it enables precise targeting through retailers' first-party data, measuring its impact remains challenging due to fragmented metrics and attribution complexity.

When Adidas moved all their media spend to digital in an effort to become “digital first,” it seemed like the obvious move. Consumers were flocking to online platforms, traditional media was supposedly dying, and everyone was preaching digital transformation. But a few years later, Adidas quietly reversed that decision. Why? Because it didn’t work. Their brand salience suffered, and their business results showed it. The campaign didn’t break through the clutter the way they had hoped. And that’s exactly the dilemma facing many marketers today.

What does it mean to be a loyal customer? And more importantly, what drives that loyalty in the first place? We often look to commercial brands for the answer, but the insights from Dansk Erhverv, Denmark’s second-largest business organisation, offer a surprisingly fresh perspective. In a recent conversation with Annette Bentzien Bastidas, Data Analysis and Insights Manager at Dansk Erhverv, we explored how a trade organisation with no traditional “products” to sell builds meaningful loyalty with its members.

Hamburg, May 1, 2025 – DVJ Insights proudly welcomes Gabriele Herrmann (Gabri) to its growing German consultancy team. With a background that blends deep research experience, user-centred thinking, and a passion for continuous learning, Gabri is ideally positioned to help DVJ’s clients in Germany unlock brand growth through actionable, insight-driven strategies. Gabri joins DVJ Insights after many years at Kantar, where she worked as a Key Account Manager for major clients such as Google and Deutsche Telekom. Her extensive collaboration with Google covered a wide range of strategic research projects, giving her valuable experience in managing complex, high-impact initiatives. In addition to her strong quantitative foundation, Gabri is a certified UX Consultant and Change Manager, bringing a versatile skill set that bridges customer experience, business transformation, and strategic insight. Gabri: “I'm excited to join DVJ Insights, where I’ve felt warmly welcomed into a team that combines high-quality analytics and methodological expertise with innovative thinking, academic collaboration, and an entrepreneurial spirit.” Martin Hellich, Global Head of Innovation at DVJ Insights, comments: “We’re delighted to welcome Gabri to the team. Her blend of UX expertise, strategic thinking, and strong client experience is a perfect fit for our ambitions in Germany. As we grow across Europe, it’s people like Gabri who ensure we remain locally grounded while working globally.” Gabri’s arrival further strengthens DVJ’s presence in Germany, one of the agency’s key growth markets, and supports its broader international mission to combine global knowledge with local expertise to drive brand growth.

We’ve grown accustomed to AI as a responsive tool, an intelligent mirror reflecting our queries. Ask, and you shall receive. But a subtle shift is underway, one that may redefine the boundary between automation and autonomy. Enter the era of AI agents. While platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok have made headlines for their language capabilities, their most transformative potential lies not in conversation but in initiative. Not what they say, but what they do. At the core of every agent is a deceptively simple idea: rather than waiting to be told what to do, it acts. Agents don’t just respond to instructions; they plan, decide, and execute. They handle tasks end-to-end, sometimes with no further human input at all. The premise is subtle. The implications are not.

In today’s media landscape, attention is fleeting and memory is selective. With every second of airtime, brands fight not only to be noticed, but to be remembered. Yet amid all the noise, one of the simplest, most effective tools for reinforcing memory often goes overlooked: the tag-on. A short follow-up message, usually shorter, aired after a competing ad, and designed to reinforce or expand on the original message. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t start from scratch. It builds quietly, efficiently, and with surprising impact. While often treated as an afterthought, the tag-on deserves far more strategic consideration. Because as the evidence shows, it plays a very specific role in how advertising works on the brain—and on behaviour. A database designed for discovery At DVJ, we’ve tested more than 10,000 ads, exposing consumers to advertising in a simulated media environment, designed to mimic real-world conditions as closely as possible. Respondents are shown a block of eight commercials and are free to zap, skip, or watch—just like they would at home. After a short distractor task, we ask them which brands they remember and what messages they took away. This setup allows us to capture natural behaviour and spontaneous recall, rather than the forced exposure or artificial memory cues used in many ad tests. And because we test at scale, we can study nuanced media tactics like tag-ons with real statistical power. Among the 10,000+ ads in our database, we identified more than 150 campaigns that used a tag-on strategy: a main ad, followed by a competitor ad, and then a shorter follow-up from the same brand. This allowed us to run a meta-analysis across campaigns, media types, categories, and creative approaches. And this is where DVJ’s Center of Expertise comes in, our internal team of PhDs and research specialists who continuously mine our data for new insights. We don’t just run tests; we uncover bigger picture learnings. Our ambition is to help brands not only measure their effectiveness but also understand why certain tactics work (or don’t). So our team went to work, to compare the performance of ads with a tag-on versus regular standalone ads. The results? Pretty eye-opening. The consistent effect of tag-ons on memory Let’s start with the most consistent finding: In campaign after campaign, tag-ons had a measurable effect on memory. On average, we saw a +17% uplift in brand recall for both TV and radio spots when a tag-on was used, compared to campaigns without one. Similarly, we saw a big impact on message recall. That’s significant. In a cluttered media environment, achieving even marginal gains in memory can mean the difference between being top of mind or out of sight. Why does this happen? Because tag-ons re-activate the communication processing in the brain. The viewer sees the brand and message again in a slightly different moment, which strengthens encoding. So while tag-ons may seem like a minor addition, they consistently deliver one of the most valuable outcomes in advertising: being remembered. It’s exactly what Byron Sharp and Jenni Romaniuk argue about mental availability: the way to stronger branding is by building and continuously reinforcing fresh memory structures in people’s minds. It also aligns with what academia calls Encoding Variability, we remember things better when they’re encoded in different ways. A tag-on that simply repeats the same message reinforces a single memory trace. But one that reframes the message or introduces a new context creates multiple cues, making the brand easier to recall. So if you're looking for a reliable way to be remembered, tag-ons are a safe bet.   But Purchase Intent? That depends. However, memory is only one part of the equation. To drive action—clicks, visits, consideration, purchase—the message must do more than repeat. It must progress . Our meta-analysis shows that tag-ons only drive higher levels of purchase intent when they are perceived to add value. That might be new information, a clearer benefit, or a fresh emotional angle. But in the majority of the cases, tag-ons failed to meet this threshold. They simply echoed the main spot, offering nothing new, and consequently, did little to move the viewer beyond recall.  This distinction matters. When a tag-on introduces something additional, viewers engage more deeply. This aligns with Daniel Kahneman’s thinking on attention and cognitive ease. Once people feel like they’ve "got it," they mentally check out. A second exposure without novelty might help them remember, but it won’t necessarily move them to act. In short: tag-ons always support memory, but only influence behaviour when they add meaningful content.   Length doesn’t matter (really) One of the more surprising findings from our analysis was that the length of the tag-on has no meaningful impact on effectiveness. Whether it’s 5 seconds or 10 seconds, the gains in brand and message recall are virtually identical. At first glance, this might seem like a small technical detail—but it has big implications. Because let’s be honest: adding a tag-on isn’t free. It requires extra media budget. And in today’s environment of tightening spend and increased scrutiny, every additional second has to justify itself. That’s why this finding is so valuable: it means you can get the memory benefits of a tag-on without needing a long second spot. From a planning perspective, this makes tag-ons a cost-efficient lever. You can use them strategically, short, sharp, and value-adding, to reinforce brand memory without blowing your media budget. It’s a classic case of less is more , as long as the content is working hard. If you’re trying to maximise your impact per euro, a smartly constructed 5-second tag-on can be one of the most efficient tools in your media mix.   What advertisers should take from this Tag-ons are often treated as tactical extras. But the evidence suggests they deserve a more prominent place in the planning process. If your objective is to build brand and message recall, and prime the audience for future choice, a tag-on is a proven tool. If your goal is to also stimulate action, then the key lies in crafting one that adds value beyond the original message. For advertisers, the opportunity is clear: Use them strategically : Plan for tag-ons as part of your creative and media mix. Don’t bolt them on as an afterthought. Deliver something new : Ensure the tag-on adds information, entertainment, or clarity beyond the main spot. Keep it short: Make use of the mechanism in the most cost-effective way. Test and learn : Don’t assume. Test your tag-on in a simulated environment or live campaign. See what it really does for your brand.   P.S. A final thought on breaking through the clutter In a world of skipping, zapping, and attention fragmentation, a tag-on gives your brand a second shot at being remembered. Used wisely, it’s not just a repetition, it’s reinforcement. It strengthens memory, sharpens recall, and, when done right, moves people closer to action. So the next time you’re planning your campaign, don’t stop at the main event. Think about the PS. Because sometimes, that’s the part that sticks. Get in touch Jori van de Spijker jori.van.de.spijker@dvj-insights.com Jori van de Spijker, Global Head of Brand and Communication at DVJ Insights, provides senior consultancy to global and local brands in the fields of brand, media, and advertising. A passionate researcher and member of the Board of Advisors at SWOCC, Jori was named Insights Professional of the Year in 2021 by the MOA in the Netherlands.

Brand activation is evolving, shifting from short-term sales drivers to essential tools for long-term brand growth. In this interview, we speak with Sanne Demir, Communication & Behavioural Strategist at De Combinatie van Factoren (DCVF), a Dutch activation agency known for combining creativity, behavioural science and retail design into impactful brand experiences. From developing concepts to 3D retail design and production, DCVF helps brands bring their strategies to life with a full-service approach rooted in insight and execution. In our conversation with Sanne, we explore how brand activation changes, why relevance matters more than ever, and what it takes to build behaviour, not just awareness.

The challenge of breaking through with new products Think back to your recent grocery shopping trips: If your answers suggest that only a small fraction of new products stood out to you, you’re not alone. Many consumers navigate stores in "automatic mode," overwhelmed by the sheer volume of options – which easily can be around 30.000 SKUs (stock keeping units) compared to only around 300 articles a shopper stores at home. So, the reality is that most new products struggle to break through the clutter.