Interview with Jordi Aymerich | Listening to the new shopper

What’s Up! Sabadell hosted the guest speaker Jordi Aymerich. Jordi is anEconomics and Business professor at the University of Barcelona as well as Managing Partner at Hamilton – a company that provides holistic, research-based marketing solutions with an strategic market perspective.He led an interesting Masterclass about new trends and tendencies of today’s consumer. Let’s hear some more about this interesting & trendy topic! 

Hello Jordi, tell us a little about yourself   

As you said I’m a marketing professor and also a marketing consultant but specialized in market research.

I like to understand in great depth how consumers behave, and I always seek for the best way to convince consumers that our brand (when I work for a particular brand) is the best option. Sometimes I feel like I’m working for “the dark side of the force” because I’m providing some insights to the brands that are real secrets for consumers.

I love what I’m doing but above all, I love doing business.

How will millennial consumer products change the world of marketing? Do old marketing strategies work nowadays?

Actually what changes are not the products but the way we consume them. Nowadays Millennials prefer to have experiences rather than owning a product. They prefer to live the experience of sharing a trip (while driving) instead of owning a car to go away. So, the strategies we use now in “experiential marketing” are a bit different to the traditional marketing strategies for products. I also think that being a Millennial is more about the attitude in terms of being born from the early 80’s to mid-90’s.

They are always (hyperconnected) so they receive a huge amount of information, and they also generate and share lots of information. This turns the consumer into the protagonist of the brand communication.

Do you think brandsare ready for this? Our whatsupper community is very entrepreneurial. Could you give the many tips to adapt the business experience to this new reality?  

Some of them are completely ready, in fact, there are a lot of new brands for which 10 years ago didn’t exist. These new brands understand the new rules which drive the market.

But all brands have to understand that they have to break their products or services into the market, as fast as they can. Because new consumers don’t think too much, they act. We live in a liquid society where nothing lasts forever, where the only thing that remains stable is the change. The consumer seeks transparency and sincerity in their relations with brands.

English has become the technological lingua franca. As a marketing researcher and strategic professional… How important is it to have a team equipped with excellent English skills in this field?

For us, English is not “nice to have”, for us is a “must”! Because we work all over the world and we need to speak, read and write in english, as it’s the first language in the world of business.

Even if you only work in Catalonia or Spain there it is still full of literature, articles, books, technical magazines which are fundamental in terms of market research. And normally it’s all in English.

If you want to be “cutting the edge” in market research you need to be informed every day about what’s new, and normally you find more info in English rather than in other languages.

Name 3 moments in which English has been personally and professionally rewarding for you.

• Last year doing a presentation of results in Dar Es Salaam. In Tanzania they have English as a second language. So I could include the main research findings within the presentation for Mobile Financial Services, incidentally, everybody was talking in English. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been possible, as my Swahili level, is still low 😉
• Last week having a conference call with a CEO of an important company based in Texas. He was explaining to us (to my team and me) what the main objectives were for the success of their company gaining a foothold in southern Europe. We have translated their objectives through market research which will help them to introduce their products in the South of Europe.
• When I watch a movie in English with my little daughter and I can brief her (at some point) when she gets lost. Anyway, her level of English is much better than mine.

Thank you very much Jordi! 

The What’s up! Team