“Rather than simply offering products and services, brands need to provide experiences that help their customers achieve their ambitions for themselves, their community and the broader world. This shift represents a greater challenge than the digital revolution.”

“Increased data, insights, networks, analyses and global interactions have made it important that we cherish the value of humans as unique beings. Critical thinking, creativity, intuition and judgements skills are core competencies that will become more important than the factors that ensured success in the past, so knowledge, analysis and experience. Organisations that master these skills, that promote connection and collaboration, will be the leaders of the future.”

“The customer stands more central than ever: marketing revolves around offering the optimal customer experience, throughout the entire customer journey. This also very much and very certainly applies to everything digital – from the first encounter with the brand, to when they open their parcel, customers want the personal, human approach of a real-life store assistant.”

“In collaboration with our partners, we want to make sure that consumers, who are looking for honest, truthful and reliable information about health, can see the wood for the trees and can make informed choices in order to live healthy and happy lives. We dream of an ‘open lifestyle medicine’ collaboration between different parties that put the health of consumers at the centre of everything.”

“De toekomst zal bepaald worden door samenwerkingsverbanden. Het uitbouwen van relaties, zowel intern als extern, levert niet alleen waarde op voor beide partijen, maar creëert ook een vertrouwenscultuur als versneller van succes.”

“Today and tomorrow,
humans and humanity are taking central place, with one important, common focus – it’s all about caring. We need to ask ourselves whether what we are doing and what we are claiming adds value, whether it solves a problem and whether it truly helps people. Make marketing more human. If you care, they will care.”

“The Human Drivers is where marketing begins: they offer us fundamental insight into the motives of individuals – be they customers, employees or stakeholders – and allow us to engage with our target audiences. Because that is what marketing is: to invoke and work with existing interpersonal relations.”

“A passion for customers is and remains the number-one priority. But this passion only turns into a relationship with the customer when it is inextricably bound up with honest and sustainable business operations.”

“Our mission is to improve the financial well-being of consumers. Driven by the consumer need for greater financial understanding and fair use of data, we are rewriting the rules of the industry. By communicating in a human, clear and transparent way. And thanks to a business model that was designed so that every time that we make money, our app users and corporate partners do too. Because we think that’s just fair.”

“There is no one secret formula that will determine everything; nor one man or woman who will make magic happen. I prefer to believe in future-proofing large groups of people by stimulating an open mindset and an eagerness to learn across all levels of the business and society, and regularly testing and assessing your alertness as an organisation and society.”

“Climate change, pollution, pandemics, water and food scarcity, social inequality, emigration, polarisation, etc. Everything is connected to everything else. Tomorrow’s companies need to have the courage to no longer simply aspire to endless linear growth, but to instead aim to holistically flourish in a circular model that embraces the triple bottom line perspective of people-profit -planet.”

“I believe everything will revolve around connecting in the years to come. Connecting the dots of strategy, culture and purpose. Connecting ’till the end with greater attention to rapid and flexible implementation during these fast-moving times. But also: connecting people and connecting to your inner self, to your customer, to your team, to your ecosystem and to the world at large.”

“In today’s complex world, the only way to build strong brands as a marketeer is to put the human drivers at the heart of your approach more than ever before. Dare to work with all the parties who influence the customer journey – from internal employees to external brand manufacturers and retailers – and embrace ‘digital’ as a powerful tool across the customer journey. So you can offer your customers the ultimate customer experience.”

“It is essential that companies adapt the two speeds of the slow-crawling biological and psychological human evolution (the tortoise) and the increasingly accelerating cultural/social evolution (the hare) to each other. It is the only way to avoid a highly uncomfortable straddling position and a breakup.”

“Over the years I have learned that tapping into the right emotion is the most important and perhaps the only motivation behind storytelling and branding, while also being the most important asset that lets people connect.”

“Today I seek to cultivate the skill to stay young, to think future-proof and to rethink the business strategy and culture. So as to be ready for the digital age, to find the right balance between existing and new investments in products, platforms, processes services and business models, with a view to sustainable value creation for customers, employees and the ecosystem, and while looking after both ourselves and the planet.”

“We recently launched a Knowledge Center that aims to inform health workers – and consumers in a later phase – about the latest scientific findings in obesity. Contributing to scientific knowledge about obesity and appropriate treatments for our target audience is as important as the solution itself.”

“In order to change a system, a number of existing premises must be fundamentally questioned. Such a transition process implies a social learning process. It is participatory; there is collective learning and collective reflection. It is a collective dream, fuelled by a positive energy toward change. Inclusive diversity is something that is achieved collectively, with all the parties concerned.”

“As more digital companies, products and services emerge, many of the markets that are still new today will become saturated over time. This is why it is essential for new companies to pay sufficient attention to the development of a strong brand that uses data to adopt an expansive, people-focused marketing approach.”

“I have no idea what my business will look like in five years; every plan I have ever created was outdated by the following year. Every conversation with customers after all produces new insights and ideas about how we could be more relevant to them. It teaches you to think outside-in and to put the person behind the customer at the heart of what you do.”

“A people-focused strategy and approach is the way forward for successful brands and successful organisations. I strongly believe in service logic thinking as an innovative paradigm, and in the power of applying technological innovations and systematic trends that are meaningful to people and society at large.”

“The corona crisis has pushed the event industry to find its way to digital and virtual events. My advice is to not seek to create a copy of the real, physical event. Online too, the experience of the ‘visitors’ should be the central focus. The challenge lies in approaching virtual events as something that is its own thing and to also manage it that way. That’s when virtual events acquire a great deal of business potential.”

“To bring a strategy to life, you need people who believe in your story, people who see their own story reflected in your story and who learn from it. Forging such human relations and mini networks will not only be indispensable to a company’s success, but also to a person’s happiness.”

“Everything keeps having to become faster and better, but the word “caring” is rarely ever heard. To approach people and things with care is a necessity and must for me. It all begins with caring for yourself and for your other relationships in a next phase: with people, with the environment, with nature, etc. To be caring means to reflect so you become more intentional.”