Intervju med Lucas Hulsebos CEO DVJ Insights
Lucas, you are the owner and CEO for the fast-growing market research company DVJ Insights. Can you tell us about your company?
After working for 20 years in the market research industry, I had the feeling that the industry did not focus enough on quality and added value. That is why I started 10 years ago with DVJ with 2 ambitions:
1) Become a trusted partner for our clients and make sure that they see DVJ as the best research company and
2) create the “best place to work” for all the people at DVJ. DVJ is now one of the fastest growing research and analytics agencies with the strong ambition to help our clients grow. The main characteristics of DVJ are:
- A strong and very seasoned team with commitment and passion for market research and our clients. Our teams are trained and good in transferring data into insights and value.
- A strong link with academia. Our Advisory Board with leading professors and our network of academic partners make sure we always work with relevant frameworks, validated techniques and best-in-class analyses.
- A good understanding of our clients. We collect this knowledge by continuous vision interviews with CMOs, marketing leaders, insight leaders, creative people, media strategists and scientists and our annual Brand Growth Study with over 3,000 marketing professionals. It enables us to really understand the challenges our clients face.
- Highly innovative in our approach and solutions. Our continuous ambition to make research better leads to continuous innovation and development.
I can proudly share that the result of our strategy is that we are already growing for 10 years with 20% or more per year. This led to 7 consecutive Gazelles for fast growth. Besides that, we are awarded as marketing research company of the year, marketing company of the year and many awards for the people at DVJ. We also have received numerous awards and nominations for our innovative approaches.
How can you describe your services to us in the Swedish market? Which industries do your customers represent mostly?
DVJ operates in three domains, namely:
1) Brand and Communication research: This varies between strategic brand studies, brand health tracking, campaign evaluation, cross media research and pre-testing from early stage till final copy.
2) Innovation research: We help clients from early idea generation till testing the full new product in home and all the steps in between. Our approach is highly predictive for in-market success because of its holistic set- up.
3) Shopper research: This integrates understanding the journey of consumers in relation to shopper mission, pack testing and shelf optimisation. We recently launched Spenderlog, technology that enables us to passively collect real-time shopper data. To make sure that Swedish clients get a harmonised approach for the Nordics we launched this in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. This new approach is based upon passive data collection, full coverage and using large samples together with our trusted partner Norstat. Norstat is a well established player in the region, and this collaboration gives us a strong local foundation to scale our innovation with confidence. It is a real breakthrough and will help all companies in understanding consumers’ shopping behaviour even better.
You have an office in Denmark, Sweden and this year you have expanded to Norway. Why is the Nordic region important to you?
Our philosophy is always based upon a central harmonised way of working with local lenses. That is why we manage all our work from The Netherlands with a true global team. In this team we have over 20 nationalities that can help in supporting research all over the world. The local lenses are our consultants that cover the main regions in Europe. The Nordic markets are important for us because they are important for our clients who need the connection with the region. The commitment we have for our clients is also visible in the coverage we have in all regions in Europe including the Nordic markets. By adding a new way of data collection (passive data collection) to our survey and AI-based methods we also create new products and solutions. This combination enables us to deliver real-time, actionable insights — a true game changer for (trade) marketers and category managers who want to act fast and smart. This makes the Nordic region a premium region for product development. One of the things we recently launched is a new way of measuring brand health. This combines shopper data, survey-based data and web scraped data. The support of Nordic consultants is crucial for these introductions.
Are there any other exciting news or collaborations you can tell us about?
There is a lot to share, and we do this with our content for our main clients. A couple of
things worth mentioning:
- We recently did our annual brand growth study with a specific sample for all the Nordic markets. It enables us to understand how Nordic marketers are organised for growth.
- We have partnered with Norstat for building a representative user base for shopper data. Working with Norstat on this opens up the possibilities to link behaviour to surveys.
- We will publish soon about new co-operation we have in the academic world with some leading Nordic business schools.
- We have built a great partnership with CatMan Solutions that support us in building dashboard solutions that are intuitive to use for all people interested in shopper data.
Looking ahead, the Nordics will remain a crucial region for us — tech-savvy, insight-driven, and open to innovation. We are excited about what’s next and look forward to growing together with our partners and clients in the region.
Du har två gyllende tillfällen att träffa DVJ Insights:
Välkommen till anmäla dig till webbinaium 24 september med DVJ Insights
Retail Media: Creativity as a Multiplier for Brand and Sales Impact
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