From Innovation to Growth – Part 1 There is no Silver Bullet Why do some new products take off while others disappear almost unnoticed? It is tempting to search for one decisive factor: the brilliant idea, the perfect price, the powerful brand or simply enough marketing pressure. But there is no silver bullet. Innovation success is shaped by multiple factors at consumer, category, brand and product level. One is fundamental: consumer relevance. As Lucas Hulsebos argues in The

Seven years ago, DVJ Insights made a deliberate decision to support doctoral research at the University of Groningen. With Hidde Smit's successful PhD defence, that long-term commitment has reached its first important milestone. Seven years ago, DVJ Insights made a deliberate decision: to invest in a PhD position at the University of Groningen. It was a significant investment, with no immediate commercial return. But it was based on a strong conviction: if we want to make mar

Building a strong brand goes far beyond creating memorable campaigns. For Beatriz Navarro, CMO of Renault Spain and President of the Spanish Marketing Association (AMKT), brand growth is fundamentally about business transformation. With more than two decades of experience across sectors including automotive, retail, foodservice and fashion, she believes that marketing must influence everything from product development and pricing to customer experience and commercial performa

How do you transform a centuries-old industry into a modern digital marketplace? For Daniela Bergek, Head of Digital Marketing at Auctionet, the answer lies in making auctions more accessible, understanding customer behaviour and using technology to remove barriers to growth. Founded in Sweden in 2011, Auctionet has grown into one of Europe's largest digital auction marketplaces, connecting traditional auction houses with buyers around the world. In this interview, Daniela sh

For many years, quick-service restaurants competed primarily on convenience, speed and price. Today, the category has become far more complex. Consumers expect affordability, but they also seek memorable experiences, flexible consumption occasions and brands that remain relevant in an increasingly fragmented world. At the same time, QSR brands face new competition from supermarket ready-to-eat meals, changing consumer habits and growing pressure to deliver both short-term sal

Financial Times och Statista uppmärksammar återigen DVJ Insights för bolagets långsiktiga organiska tillväxt under ett decennium – ett kvitto på det internationella marknadsundersökningsföretagets fortsatta framgångar i en utmanande bransch. Stockholm, 28 oktober 2026 - DVJ Insights har återigen utsetts till ett av Europas långsiktiga tillväxtföretag (’Long-Term Growth Champions’) 2027 av Financial Times och Statista. För andra året i rad finns det internationella marknadsund

In a category built around preserving memories, staying relevant means continually finding new ways to help customers capture them. For Susan Judge, VP Marketing at Storio Group, brand growth is therefore less about finding one breakthrough idea and more about consistency in delivery and staying close to the ongoing evolution of customer needs and expectations. Operating multiple brands across Europe, including Photobox and albelli, Storio combines significant brand heritage

When Leaving Price Out Of A Concept Test Is Harmless – And When It Becomes Costly Concept Testing is about making Decisions Concept testing plays a central role in the innovation process. It supports important decisions: should an innovation proceed or be stopped? If it proceeds, which elements should be retained, improved or changed? These decisions are often made when the proposition is already defined, but many marketing-mix elements are not. Packaging, distribution, comm

How do you introduce a radically new technology under one of the world’s most established brands? For Ceren Wende, Head of Marketing & Communications at Volvo Autonomous Solutions, the answer starts with trust, but trust cannot be taken for granted. While the Volvo name provides an enormous advantage when entering autonomous transport, it also creates a responsibility to protect what the brand has built over decades. In a category where safety concerns and scepticism remain s

Today’s advanced eye-tracking informs us much better about which elements attract attention, which don't and how attention is divided across a design. A heatmap almost immediately addresses the key points of attention. However, it can become uncomfortable when there is insufficient insight into what actually drives attention, why certain elements are being noticed while others are overlooked, and therefore what can be done to improve visibility. This got me thinking, as in my

Across more than two decades, Charlotte Ottesen-Hansen has helped build, nurture and transform some of the world’s most recognised brands. Her career has taken her from Dior and L’Oréal’s luxury division to Pandora, Georg Jensen and, most recently, Flügger, spanning beauty, jewellery, home interiors and home improvement. Although the categories differ, Charlotte sees a common foundation behind sustainable brand growth. It does not begin with a campaign or a new product, but w

How often should someone see an advertisement before it starts to work? It is one of those deceptively simple questions that has occupied advertisers for decades. And for a long time, the industry has had an equally simple answer: around three times. The origins of that thinking go back more than 50 years. In 1972, Herbert Krugman published his influential paper Why Three Exposures May Be Enough, describing different stages of psychological response to repeated advertising. O

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. Every day, consumers encounter numerous digital advertisements across platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and TikTok. Yet despite brands investing heavily in online video advertising, capturing attention has become increasingly difficult. Consumers skip, scroll and swipe through content faster than ever before, forcing marketers to compete in an environment where attention is one of th

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

Stockholm, 7 oktober 2026 – DVJ Insights har nominerats till MRS Application of Analytics Award 2026 för en studie som undersöker vilka mått inom koncepttestning som på ett tillförlitligt sätt kan förutsäga faktisk framgång på marknaden. Det är en av två nomineringar för DVJ Insights i årets MRS Awards, tillsammans med en nominering i kategorin Media Research. Vilka mått förutsäger framgång på marknaden? Koncepttestning spelar en viktig roll när företag beslutar vilka innov

Stockholm, 7 oktober 2026 – DVJ Insights har nominerats till MRS Media Research Award 2026 för en ny metod som mäter hur influencers och content creators bidrar till varumärkesbyggande i den totala mediemixen. Det är en av två nomineringar för DVJ Insights i årets MRS Awards, tillsammans med en nominering i kategorin Application of Analytics. Bortom engagemangsmått I takt med att investeringar i allt högre grad flyttas till sociala plattformar, influencers och content creat