56% of the Flemish population thinks this slogan is good, or even very good, 53% of Flanders know that this is the slogan of the N-VA party and even 71% think that this slogan matches very well with N-VA. “Nu durven veranderen” hits the nail on the head according to many Flemish people: we are faced with many big challenges but politicians need to have the courage to make the necessary changes. The slogan is positive without being aggressive. Short, powerful but also meaningful. The survey also shows that 61% of the Flemish people prefer voting right to compulsory voting. Only 4% of voters intend not to vote on June 13th.  In Limburg we can even speak of a Stijn Meuris effect:   7% of the voters in Limburg intend not to vote!

Between June 1 and 6th, Market Research agency Profacts asked a total of 1.000 Flemish people to give their opinion about the slogans that are used in the current federal election campaigns by the Flemish political parties,  and tested their knowledge of these slogans. The sample of N=1000 Flemish people is representative for the Flemish population of voters (18+), for age, sex, province and social class.

Following slogans were tested:

Nooit opgeven – CD&V

Een nieuwe start – Open VLD

Nu durven veranderen – N-VA

We moeten weer vooruit – SP.A

Vlamingen 1st – Vlaams Belang

úw centen, daar gaat het om – Lijst Dedecker

Maak 13 positief – Groen!

Stem tegen dit politieke circus – PvdA

When presented without the corresponding parties, the Flemish voters find the slogan “Nu durven veranderen” of N-VA the best : 23% of the Flemish finds this the very best slogan.  That means the slogan scores much higher than all other slogans. The slogan of Groen! – “Maak 13 positief” – is clearly the least of the slogans:  only 6% of the Flemish population chooses this slogan as the best one. The slogan of CD&V – “Nooit opgeven” scores very low, with less than 10% of the Flemish population preferring this slogan. The slogan of N-VA scores well with all target groups,  but better  with men (26%) than with women (21%) and with the age group younger than 30 years old (27%) and older than 60 years (26%).

Next to the ranking of the slogans, people were also asked to tell wether they find the slogans good or bad. Again, the slogan of NV-A was given the best scores. The slogan of Groen! was judged the worst. 56% of the Flemish population thinks that “Nu durven veranderen” is a good or a very good slogan, and only 17% of the voters think the same of “Maak 13 positief”.

The slogan of Groen! – Maak 13 positief – receives bad scores because most do not understand this slogan or because they find it irrelevant. Moreover it proves to be a bad idea to refer to the number 13, which is linked to bad luck. The slogan of N-VA (“Nu durven veranderen”) hits the nail on the head for many Flemish people: we are faced with many big challenges but politicians need to have the courage to make the necessary changes. The slogan is positive without being aggressive. Short, powerful but also meaningful.

Recognition of the slogans is highest for Vlaams Belang: 90% of the voters know that the slogan ‘Vlamingen 1st’ is from Vlaams Belang. The slogan of N-VA receives very good scores as well, and comes in second place: 53% of the Flemish population knows that “Nu durven veranderen” is the slogan of N-VA. 50% knows that “Nooit opgeven” belongs to CD&V, which makes this slogan third. The bad scores of the slogan of CD&V are not due to the fact that the slogan is unknown. “Een nieuwe start” and “Stem tegen dit politieke circus” are the slogans that are known the least: only 36% of the Flemish voters know that these are the slogans of Open VLD and PvdA. Open VLD misses an opportunity: their slogan is very well received, but few people actually know that this slogan is theirs.

Subsequently for each slogan the party was indicated. For each slogan was asked if the slogan had a good fit with the political party. Winners were, again, Vlaams Belang and N-VA. The slogan ‘Vlamingen 1st’ has a good and even very good fit for 85% of the voters with Vlaams Belang. 71% says that ‘Nu durven veranderen’ fits N-VA well to very well. The slogan “Maak 13 positief” comes last again: only 32% of the Flemish population finds that this slogan fits Groen! well of even very well.

Next to the questions about the slogans, participants were also asked about their opinion about voting right versus compulsory voting.

61,2% of Flemish voters indicate to be pro voting right, while 38,8% would rather keep compulsory voting. In case of voting right, 76,3% of Flemish voters would vote anyway. Amongst the voters for Vlaams Belang we find the most in favor of voting right (69% pro voting right). This is also the case for Lijst Dedecker (83%). If voting right would become a reality, these would be the voters that would stay at home the most. Vlaams Belang and Lijst Dedecker would have most to lose if ever voting right would become a reality. The voters that are most motivated we find amongst PvdA and Groen!. There, respectively 90% and 91% would vote even if there were voting right instead of compulsory voting.

Although some popular Flemish stars have asked not to vote on June 13th, only 4,3% of Flemish voters claim that they will not vote. This intention exists more with men (6%) than it does with women (3%), more for the age group of higher than 60 years (6%) than for people younger than 30(2%). What strikes most is that the intention not to vote is higher in Limburg (7%) compared to the other provinces (4%). This is probably due to some kind of Stijn Meuris effect.

Two recent studies show that, for the first time since tracking media usage and importance, internet is beating television as the most popular medium in North America.

In a first study, 1.7530 Americans older than twelve were asked what they would give up if they could only choose one. For the first time, more Americans said they would rather give up their television (49%) than their internet connection (48%). In 2001, still 72% said they would rather give up their internet connection and only 26% were prepared to go on living without their television. In general, Americans see the internet as the most important medium in their life (42%), followed by television (37%), radio (14%) and newspapers (5%).

The second study was performed among Canadians and shows for the first time that they spend more time online than watching television. Whereas the Canadians spend slightly over 18 hours per week on the internet, they spend slightly under 17 hours watching television per week. Only a year ago, Canadians spent 15 hours per week on the internet. Whereas there is a fast growth of hours spent on the internet, the other media (television, radio, newspapers and magazines) have remained quite stable in the last year.

We strongly believe that also in Europe this is bound to happen. Looking at it from a consumer point of view, compared to television, internet has many advantages. First of all, almost all TV series and movies are also available online. Second, much more information is available online, with millions of websites directed to small niche groups. Third, the information online is available at any time and from any place, whereas television programs and channels are highly restricted to a specific time and place. Finally, in many countries internet is much cheaper than television and is the cost of an internet connection decreasing.

From a marketing point of view, it is important to note however, that internet usage is often not going very much at the expense of watching television. It is mainly the usage of internet that is increasing with people still watching TV almost as much as before. This could of course change in the future, when iTV (television channels broadcasting via the internet) becomes more widespread. But for now, TV is still a very useful medium, with many important strengths, such as mass reach, intrusiveness, possibility to target based on content of the programs, credibility, high awareness, strength of combining high quality visual and auditive stimuli, etc.

Nonetheless, we are sure that anyone in marketing will want to watch the “battle” between internet and television very closely and adapt their marketing strategies according to the changes in usage and importance of these two media.

Rebecca described a day in the life @ Profacts for BAQMaR – Partner in the spotlight: Profacts

8.30h: arrival at the office – as our offices are located in the lovely Eke near Ghent, we do not have to deal with any traffic jams at all. I know, quite a luxury nowadays!… The first early birds are already there, others pop in a bit later, and around 9 o’clock we have a “full house”. One year ago this meant 7 people, nowadays Profacts already counts 11 employees.

9.00h: this promises to be another interesting and varied day! Looking at my agenda, I see various aspects of market research planned for today: from a briefing meeting for a new project, to construction of a questionnaire and finalization of a presentation that is planned for tomorrow J But first of all, I want to make a short update of the team planning, just to be sure that everybody is on track to meet the deadlines that are ahead of us. As the average turnaround of a project is 4 to 6 weeks, deadlines are everyday’s business @ Profacts!

10.00h: I first want to finalize the presentation, as the client has asked for a preview before the real presentation takes place. This is something we also prefer and do as much as possible, as it allows us to focus on the aspects that really matter to the client. I consider myself lucky when I notice that the report has been prepared perfectly – thank you colleagues – so I can really focus on the conclusions & the story.

12.45h: lunch time! A bit later than my stomach suggests me, but I first wanted to give one of our clients a status update of the fieldwork of a running project. “Customer before stomach” J As usually, we are having lunch with all colleagues together. It turns out to be another relax lunch, filled with humor & laughing.

13.30h: with renewed energy, we can take on the questionnaire construction! Only yesterday, we received a briefing from the client, and we now clearly know which direction to go. At Profacts, questionnaires are tailor-made, so I go through the process of defining questions, rephrasing them, deleting them, adding new questions & deleting them again, just until we are sure that the questionnaire will allow us to know exactly what our client wants to know. Just a quick feedback round with one of the managing partners (at Profacts, we are convinced about the fact that 2 people know more than 1 J) and the questionnaire is ready to be sent to the client!

17.00h: briefing meeting with a client on a new project. This is definitely one of the fun parts of my job J I’m always curious to find out the client’s information needs, and excited to work out a specific research approach that leads to actionable conclusions. This time, it turns out to be a request for a concept test in the services sector. Perfect! We have quite some experience in that kind of research, so I am looking forward to start up this new project!

19.30h: last stop of the day: I have the opportunity to attend an interesting event. An ideal mix of content & networking, don’t want to miss this one.

22.30h: that’s it for today, goodnight! It has proven to be another busy, but productive day. And that’s exactly what I like so much about this job: every day is different!

Last week, I attended the Febelmar Happening 2010. It turned out to be a very inspiring evening! These are the 5 points that I will remember from this happening : 

- Overall, I heard positive messages about the first quarter of 2010!

- From the speech of the new Febelmar president, I especially remembered that market research spendings in Belgium are actually lower compared to other European countries, both in absolute and in relative numbers (i.e., expressed as spending per head + as a percentage of marketing spendings). At the positive site, this means there is quite some growth potential in our country

- Patrick Wauters (Chiquita) and Philippe Wallez (ING) both convincingly demonstrated the crucial role of research in 2 markets that are totally different. Despite these differences, they both showed a crucial role for a co-creating consumer who has more power than ever before.

- Stand-up comedian Dirk Denoyelle had the difficult job to make everybody laugh. I can imagine that Dirk faced easier audiences than market researchers J. However, he did a great job and I especially liked his contribution “market research for La Famiglia”. 

- During the networking drink & walking dinner, I had the opportunity to talk to several people from the client and agency side. It was striking to hear that most of them strongly believe in the future of small agencies, as they work more tailor-made, more interactive and more flexible. This is not only applicable in market research, but also in communication and advertising (e.g., the guys from sixplusone are definitely on the right track).

In the last couple of weeks there was a lot of buzz about city marketing, a topic on which Profacts has realized several surveys in the past.

One of the stories concerned a discussion in the city of Leuven: the opposition does not agree that the city would pay 200.000 euro to become the scene for a new TV-series. Also in Halle there has been protest, because “Mijn restaurant” can cost the city up to 50.000 euro. There was also some commotion about the intervention of Bart Tommelein in the Flemish parliament. He wondered whether it is acceptable that the VRT receives money from local communities. Taking into account the dotation the VRT receives from the Flemish government it could be stated that tax payers are paying twice for the same TV program.

Indeed, more and more cities, communities and regions are willing to pay to act as the background of a Flemish TV-show. Koksijde has even paid 200.000 euro for getting the telenovela “David” to the city. “The viewer will undoubtedly recognize or discover many beautiful places”, said a proud mayor of Koksijde. The intention was clear: make a postcard of your city and lure the viewer to Koksijde on his next trip to the seaside.

City marketing on the TV screen is indeed very popular these days: De Rodenburgs are living in Kortrijk, you can taste De smaak van De Keyser in Hasselt, Jes is moving to Brussels and after Gent, the city of Sint-Niklaas now wants to welcome the new season of Villa Vanthilt.

The article states that city marketing is considered as priceless advertising for a city and an easy extra income for a production company. This seems correct, but at the same time this also implies a potential problem: cities expect advertising and promotion for their city, while production companies simply expect a scene. This means that city marketing can also be a risky investment. E.g the scene for Jes was Brussels. But in the first episode someone got robbed, confirming the negative image of the city. Other initiatives, e.g. Het Glazen Huis” of Studio Brussel, clearly have a more positive image, and cities are fighting to welcome them in their city, as they are a guarantee for success.

So even though city marketing can be a bit of a gamble, it still remains interesting. Think about the series Flikken: this costed the city of Ghent 500.000 euro, but because of the success the number of overnight stays by Dutch tourists doubled.

Want to find out more about city marketing research at Profacts? Do not hesitate to contact us.

Last week (25-27 february 2010) the Euprera Spring Symposium took place in Ghent. This year’s theme “Social Media go Mainstream”, dealt with a variety of “New Challenges for Internal Communication, Reputation, Education and The Public Sector”.

As a true “stropken” (born & educated in Ghent), I’d like to draw your attention to a presentation brought by Bart Rosseau, responsible for the communication strategy of the City of Ghent. Bart Rosseau explains why and how Ghent added social media to its communication strategy, thereby evolving from traditional media to “Government 2.0”. As we would say in Ghent: “Oas da nie wijs es …”.

Why using social media?

• Government communication is quite complex: it covers a very broad spectrum of messages, with different tools, by different spokespersons. But most importantly:  the messages need to reach EVERBODY in the city. Using social media, allows to address those segments that are difficult to reach with traditional media (e.g. the City Magazine), as for instance the youngsters.
• Social media allow reaching segmented groups with specific, direct messages (e.g. parents, inhabitants of a certain street, companies …).
• Their informal, creative character enhances the public’s interest in politics, making the decision-making process itself a part of the public arena and letting citizens interact. Social media bring you “where the people are”. It involves the citizens in the city projects; it makes ‘talking to the government’ less intimidating.
• Social media can be used to create a good “vibe” around certain events, at a very low cost.

Overcoming the challenges faced by Government 2.0?

Mr. Rosseau also warns for some pitfalls when using social media in governmental communication.

• Using social media broadens your communication toolbox. This means that you, more than ever, need to plan ahead, thinking about your goals, target audience and tone of voice.
• Maintaining a consistent online corporate identity is probably one of the biggest challenges: who is allowed to speak for the city, how and at any given time?
• Last, but not least: social media can be the right tool for government communication, but not the only tool for communication. Let’s not forget that a lot of people have no access to computers and/or internet, and thus still rely on the traditional media to receive information.

Ghent Government 2.0 success story: “Gent over Morgen”

With its project “Gent over Morgen”, Ghent wanted to apply the two-way symmetrical model (as developed by James Grunig), informing its citizens about the city’s long term strategy (“Ghent 2020”), and on the other hand also asking people about their expectations of Ghent in the long run. This project combined the social media Youtube, Facebook & the city’s blogsite Gentblogt.

Via YouTube people were invited to visualise their ideas about the future of Ghent, or what they would like to see changed.

The facebook-group Gent over Morgen, created a platform where people could show there affiliation with the project and were informed about upcoming events.

The most effective medium in gathering people’s feedback on the project was Gentblogt. This is one of the more active cityblogs in Belgium, and was awarded with best Cityblog. Gentblogt launched one question each week for ten weeks running. Quickly, elaborating and challenging discussions coloured with personal stories, scientific references and gossip stories emerged; providing the city with a clear image of the topics people cared about and where they saw the best opportunities for Ghent to grow.

Want find out more on measuring the effects of news- & social media on your brand or corporate identity? Profacts has developed a tool which allows for tracking your e-reputation (your reputation on the internet).

A new research by Jobat and Profacts among 4.014 employees reveals that most employees have now had their yearly job evaluation for 2009 and that most of them received positive feedback.  ”Managers like to give high scores. It keeps the peace and quiet among the employees in the company and it releaves them from following up on employees that are not performing as desired”, says Reginald De Lannoy of Hudson.

Flanders is working. And apparently, Flanders is working hard. Of the 4.014 Flemish employees that were interviewed, 9 out of 10 claim that they have received a positive job evaluation. Most of them – 86% – also say that they had expected such a positive feedback. De Lannoy is a bit surprised by such positive news. “It is important to know that not all managers are trained in conveying a negative message. Often, they prefer to be positive, because a negative evaluation means that they have to put time in helping and guiding underperforming employees or that they have to implement negative consequences.”

Non-critical managers often turn the job evaluation into a useless tool. “Managers who don’t dare to set objectives carry an important responsibility for the fact that job evaluations often don’t reach their goal. Moreover, they are playing a very dangerous game with their employees. A good evaluation provides hope and a false feeling of security. I often meet ex-employees in outplacement that received splendid job evaluations year after year, but who were layed-off anyway. So, don’t think that a good evaluation means you’re not considered when companies are letting employees go” says to De Lannoy.

“On the floor, formal and informal evaluations are often mixed up. The reason is that managers are seldom well-prepared to evaluate their employees. Very few of them are coached in the evaluation process. They are rarely evaluated about the way they evaluate people. This means that they often quickly do an evaluation session in between some other tasks” says De Lannoy.

This rather gloomy analysis by De Lannoy is confirmed by the results of the study. One in five employees says their evaluation session is badly organized and not well prepared. Even more than half of the employees are convinced that the evaluation is nothing more than something the manager feels he has to do out of obligation, rather than as a tool to improve employees’ performances. Among civil servants even two thirds of employees thinks this is the case. On the positive side, about three out of four evaluations are based on standardized documents and are in this way relatively objective.

If you would like to know more about this study, please visit Jobat.

A couple of months ago, Profacts performed about 400 street interviews about the interest in take-away coffee shops in Belgian tourist cities. More than half of the people who were interviewed were very interested in a coffee shop with take-away coffee and thee. About 1 in 10 even said that they would have bought coffee or thee at the very moment of the interview if there would have been a coffee shop right there. Not surprisingly, the idea of a take away coffee shop was most appealing to young people and to tourists. Old ladies still preferred local coffeeshops where they could also order pancakes or Belgian waffles.

In this research, Profacts also wanted to know which chain of coffee shops was best known, spontaneously as well as aided. Six out of ten interviewed people knew the chain Starbucks and 28% of interviewed people even mentioned this chain spontaneously. Based on these findings we did not understand why Starbucks was not yet present on the Belgian market. Some of the Starbucks-addicts at Profacts – actually only Timothy – went to Brussels Airport hours before his flight a couple of times to try out the Starbucks at Brussels Airport, but it is clearly not the same as a Starbucks in the city.

Apparently, also Starbucks has heard the cry of the Belgian Starbucks fans (or they wanted to stop the constant stream of mails by Timothy), because today Starbucks is opening a new coffee shop  in the central train station in Antwerpen. Many train passengers will have an extra ‘attraction’ in the train station Antwerpen-Centraal, but I’m curious whether every passenger will like the Starbucks take-away coffee. Undeniably, there will always be people who still prefer a fresh cup of coffee in a local café. According to Starbucks this is not a problem, because their numbers show that the presence of a Starbucks actually increases the coffee consumption in the venues around the Starbucks. Our own Starbucks-watcher – yes still the one who goes to Brussels airport and who spent a whole day in the first Starbucks in Seattle even though it looks just like a regular Starbucks – thinks this positive effect on the surrounding venues is correct. He is probably biased, but his belief is based on the observation that during a visit to Vienna, one of the authentic coffee capitals in Europe, he saw that the traditional historical coffee houses co-extisted peacefully with the at least 6 Starbucks coffee shops in the city center. Both the Starbucks coffee shops and the traditional coffee houses were crowded at all times of the day.

Anyway, our research results predict a bright future for Starbucks in Belgium and we sincerely hope that also the local coffee houses prosper through the presence of this competitor.

On Friday, there was an interesting news story in Het Laatste Nieuws, which shows the need for companies to be vigilant when they want to protect their internet brand. Apparently Google earns quite some money through advertisements that are placed on websites that have a misspelled name. The phenomenon of registering intentionally misspelled domain names, e.g. domain names that are only one letter different from existing popular domain names, is called “typosquatting”. It is one of at least two ways in which your online brand can be misused by others.

Cybersquatting

The first method revolves around predicting the need for the domain name itself. A perfect example of this in recent times was with the release of Apple’s Ipad. People tried to buy names like www.Islate.com; www.Ipaper.com; www.Ipage.com in the hopes that one of them would be the new name of Apple’s new gadget. If they are lucky and actually guess the name of the product and register it, they might be able to sell this domain to Apple for a huge profit or get revenues by placing ads on the “cybersquatted” site. Off course, this isn’t always possible because apple’s main domain is http://www.apple.com/insertgadgethere but there are many other products that have their respective website like www.senseo.com (product of Philips) or www.nespresso.com (product of Nestlé).

Another way of “cybersquatting” is looking for the domains that are not yet registered. Let’s take for example Douwe Egberts, a coffee roasting company. Douwe Egberts registered the URL www.douwe-egberts.com which will be their main domain name. A “cybersquatter” will register www.douwe-egberts.be or www.douwe-egberts.eu. This way, if people look for the company Douwe Egberts, they will have multiple options and perhaps click on the link of the “cybersquatter” which redirects them to a website with wrong info, spyware or other information that you as a company do not want. Another example of a company that is aware of “cybersquatting” is a newspaper called “het laatste nieuws”. There URL is www.hln.be but you could use www.hetlaatstenieuws.be as well. No luck for “cybersquatting” this brand.

Typosquatting

“Typosquatting” is a way where you use common typing errors. For example, people type www.google.com like www.googel.com or www.gooogle.com. In this case, Google already registered most common misspelled ways of Google and redirected them to the correct website. This common way of mistyping can lead you to an alternate site containing information that might be harmful to your company or brand or associate your product with something you do not want.

Did you know

Did you know that people visit “typosquatted” and “cybersquatted” sites about 68 million times a day.

Did you know that Google makes around 497 million dollar each year by “typosquatting” (ad revenue).

Did you know that Arnold Schwarzenegger registered the 10 most misspelled ways of his name?

A majority of the active Flemish people (67 percent) say that their job makes them happy in everyday life. “If the economy starts to improve again, satisfaction will probably decrease. At that point in time people will see more opportunities on the job market and the grass will again seem much greener at the other side”, says professor Anseel. “Although previous research shows that ‘working’ is the activity that makes us feel least happy, other studies show that working gives our life meaning and is important for our identity.”

It is probably not a coincidence that especially employees in the social sector (76%) and education (82%) say that their job makes them happy. “In those jobs you often notice at the end of the day that you have made a difference”, continues professor Anseel. “However, there is an alternative explanation. Jobs in education, for instance, are not paid very well. So you are not in such a job for the money. Choosing a job in education is thus probably more based on the job content.”

Within the top three of most satisfied employees are also people who are self-employed. Among them, 79 percent are happy with their job, which has much to do with the freedom and independence with which they can do their job. “The more people can decide their own job content, the higher the satisfaction with their job”, clarifies professor Anseel.

Apart from the freedom or independence (29%), liking our job has to do most with the job content (39%) and the colleagues (27%). Only 16% thinks the pay check is the most satisfying about a job, ranking even after working hours and social atmosphere at the  job. “Pay is important, but not a determining factor for job satisfaction. The trio autonomy, meaningfulness and good relations are much more important”, confirms professor Anseel.

Click here if you want to know more about these results.