Interview with Godfried Bogaerts and Floris Ketel

Introduction

Floris Ketel and Godfried Bogaerts are respectively the Strategic Director and COO of Mirabeau BV. Mirabeau is a Netherlands-based web agency that specializes in designing and building websites for large, mostly for-profit companies such as Vodafone, KLM, ING and AEGON.

Ketel and Bogaerts were interviewed to get their take on the future of Mirabeau’s business and the direction in which the corporate website is heading. The interview was based on a mindmap (the diagram below gives a condensed version) which was used to trigger conversation about different areas (Political, Economic, Societal, Technological, Environmental and Corporate/Business) of the online landscape.

Interview

Conducted on Tuesday 15 September 2009 by Daniel Peters

Brands and the role of Brands

Q: How do you expect brands will develop on the Internet from the perspective of content mashups? With more and more services being bundled and repackaged, it is hard for companies to distinguish themselves if they’re part of that package.
A: Ketel: a central point will always be required. Customers want ease/peace of mind and I strongly believe companies/brands can offer this. That’s what builds affinity with and loyalty for a brand. However, a brand needs a platform to create such affinity and needs to ‘put a face to it’. At the same time, I feel a shift will take place: companies now often seek to control the complete value chain through vertical integration, but as you state their products and services are being used as parts of larger packages, mashed up into new offerings. The shift I see is from companies seeking to integrate vertically and controlling the value chain to those that are able to flexibly combine parts of various value chains into cut-to-size offerings for consumers. If they manage to brand that activity –more than the exact product they deliver– I believe they can compete successfully: offering users what they want, when they want it.

Another take on the company or brand of the future is a social one: a brand will help you through life. The brand (or corporation) could even be seen as a political party or a religion (admittedly, this is taking things far!), with people becoming very attached to companies or brands. The brand always has manifested itself over different channels. The online channel has already become extremely important and will continue to claim an increasingly prominent position. As consumers become more demanding and the Internet achieves ever broader bandwidth, a number of channels/portals for different services could appear. For example, see it this way that the Albert Heijn of the future serves exclusively over the web and delivers to your door. The company can no longer differentiate on price but must do so on product range, speed of delivery and possibly delivers a whole range of other services as well, like integrating laundry services into the package. People start to put a great deal of trust in the company that takes care of all these services, it becomes a ‘partner for life’.

Q: But don’t you think people will want to take control themselves and make there own decisions? Why let some company determine so much for you?
A: Ketel:I do think people will want to take control, “power to the people” as the diagram shows. However, people are becoming increasingly convenience oriented. They want power over stuff that matters, decisions and choices were their opinion is going to make a difference. I think companies need to be aware of this: if you’re delivering a product or service which is highly differentiated, then you won’t be able to steer people in the direction and you have to listen closely, involve them, give them options. But where you’re delivering everyday goods, make the choice for them.

    I think the only difference is really the degree to which the consumer is involved in the choice. If as a company you’re aware of the degree of choice your consumer wants (and note: this can be quite different for different consumer bases!) you have the ability to suggest options to exactly the level that consumer expects. In this area, personalized offerings over the web are still a vast territory waiting to be explored. Amazon’s “users who also bought…” is just the beginning.