Decoded, the podcast of the marketing research firm IntoTheMinds

Action has copied the same store more than 3000 times: same floor space, same aisles, almost the same products. That discipline is its weapon, and the chain itself is starting to loosen it.

You will take away three things. The store is a template that nothing adapts to the country, and that is what lets Action open more than one a day. Because every store is identical, a new item is ordered for three thousand stores in one go, and it is that volume that makes the price. And the model is starting to loosen, not under pressure from a competitor, but on Action's own initiative.

Chapters
00:00 The most disciplined chain
01:23 The template store
04:57 The constraint makes the price
07:36 Action loosens its own rule
10:03 What lessons can we draw?

Clips: Hajir Hajji, CEO of Action, at NRF Retail's Big Show Europe, 2025 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjZxzNtgsyM) ; Wouter De Backer, then head of Action France, on the French channel BFM Business, 2022 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHACKdsYfHs) ; Joost Sliepenbeek, chief financial officer, at 3i Group, 2026 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVEhMBK4Sbc).

The full analysis, with the detailed figures and the charts: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/en/action-strategy/

This episode was written by Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, founder of the market research firm IntoTheMinds.

Get our market analyses every week: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/newsletter/inscription

#Action #Retail #HardDiscount #MarketResearch #Strategy

Ethical promises now account for just 4% of the new food products launched worldwide, while 71% of consumers prefer products from their own region. Virtue in our food did not disappear out of cynicism, but because nobody was paying for it.

The green expectation stayed intact while the green offer collapsed. In 2024, price became the first marker of quality, ahead of labels, and sustainable innovation arrives more expensive on the shelf. And yet sustainability is coming back, disguised as savings: at Algama, what convinces the manufacturers is not the climate, it is the price of egg.

Chapters
00:00 The worst-sold promise
01:09 The green offer has vanished
03:20 Price replaced the label
05:45 Sustainability disguised as savings
08:18 What lessons can we draw?

Sources: global food innovation barometer; large international consumer study, 2024 and 2026; IntoTheMinds analyses. Extracts: Emmanuel Faber (Danone), 26 June 2020; Hein Schumacher (Unilever), April 2024; Ursula von der Leyen (European Commission), 26 February 2025.

The full analysis, with the charts: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/en/

This episode was written by Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, founder of the market research firm IntoTheMinds.

Get our market analyses every week: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/newsletter/inscription

#SustainableFood #FoodIndustry #CarbonFootprint #MarketResearch #Strategy

In France, 44% of employees who use AI at work are afraid their colleagues will notice. Management, meanwhile, is looking for the data leak. Our survey shows that this fear is the best signal that someone is about to leave.

We questioned 500 working people in France in 2026, a hundred per age group. The fear of being seen by colleagues falls from 51% with nothing but a personal account to 30% with official access, and climbs to 57% under a ban. And 36% combine the feeling that AI does the job better than they do with the fear of being spotted: 66% of them would leave.

Chapters
00:00 The fear nobody measures
01:11 Our survey
02:33 What brings the fear down
04:55 The reversal
07:30 What lessons can we draw from this?

Sources: IntoTheMinds survey 2026, 500 working people in France, 100 per age group, margin of error of 4 points; European AI Act, article 4, February 2025.

Clips: Arthur Mensch (Mistral AI) before the French Assemblée nationale, 12 May 2026; Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Milken Institute Global Conference, 6 May 2025; Dario Amodei (Anthropic), 29 May 2025.

The full analysis, with all the tables: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/ia-generative-entreprise/

This episode was written by Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, founder of the market research firm IntoTheMinds.

Get our market analyses every week: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/newsletter/inscription

#AIAtWork #ShadowAI #HR #MarketResearch #GenerativeAI

Copenhagen, June 29, 2026: the Danish government drops data centers to the bottom of the priority list for connecting to the power grid. 60 gigawatts of requests filed, in a country that only calls on 7 on a peak day. This market no longer has a money problem.

You'll take away three things. Spending by the world's four largest buyers has nearly tripled in two years: capital is no longer the limiting factor. The bottleneck moved into the power socket, with five to ten years of connection delay in the United States. Then the permit became scarcer than money, from the Maine moratorium to the Danish queue.

Chapters
00:00 Copenhagen, June 2026
01:09 Money stopped being scarce
03:51 The bottleneck is the socket
05:58 Scarcer than capital
08:12 What to take away

Sources: quarterly filings from Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft; the French grid operator's generation adequacy report; academic work on electricity bills, heat and noise; IntoTheMinds analyses.

The full analysis, with all the charts: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/

This episode was written by Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, founder of the market research firm IntoTheMinds.

Get our market analyses every week: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/newsletter/inscription

#DataCenters #Energy #AI #MarketResearch #Strategy

One morning on a country road, your car suddenly runs short of power: 27 horsepower have just been locked away by a software update, one month after delivery. The engine has lost nothing. Volkswagen, Tesla, Ford and BMW now sell cars full of switched-off features: what you pay for is no longer the equipment, but the right to switch it on.

Volkswagen takes 27 horsepower off an ID.3 after the first month, and Tesla no longer sells its self-driving system in Europe, it rents it out at 99 euros a month. A feature billed at 20 euros a month brings in close to 3,000 euros over the life of an American car. The real gold mine is the used market: 80% of connected cars brought in nothing, and New York State now wants to sort these subscriptions out.

Chapters
00:00 One January morning
01:19 Hardware on board, switched off
03:14 What a rented feature is worth
05:06 The second owner and the lawmaker
07:18 What is the lesson?

Sources: connected service pricing in North America, January 2026, communications from Tesla, Volkswagen, BMW, Ford and General Motors, a 2021 survey of American car owners, the New York State bill, IntoTheMinds analyses.

The full analysis, with all the charts: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/

This episode was written by Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, founder of the market research firm IntoTheMinds.

Get our market analyses every week: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/newsletter/inscription

#Automotive #Subscription #ConnectedCar #MarketResearch #Strategy

Munich, June 16, 2026: a BMW press release lands in the middle of a trading session. On every hundred euros of cars sold, the group will keep less than three this year, against almost ten two years earlier. And yet BMW is still the world's biggest premium carmaker by volume.

BMW made a rare choice: never decide between petrol, hybrid and electric, and never break prices. In the United States, that doctrine produces a third record year, because building in Spartanburg shelters the group from import duties while Audi imports everything. In China, the same doctrine costs it one sale in four in four years, facing a market that had already switched to new energy vehicles.

Chapters
00:00 Munich, June 2026
01:11 Refusing to choose
03:16 The Spartanburg plant
05:12 The market that had already decided
07:30 So what's the lesson?

Sources: BMW Group annual results from 2021 to 2025, profit warning of June 16, 2026, accounts of the BMW Brilliance joint venture, 2025 deliveries from Audi and Mercedes-Benz, American, European and Chinese registrations, IntoTheMinds analyses.

The full analysis, with all the charts: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/

This episode was written by Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, founder of the market research firm IntoTheMinds.

Get our market analyses every week: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/newsletter/inscription

#BMW #Automotive #China #MarketResearch #Strategy

The team sports aisle, March 2026: the Kipsta football drops below 3 euros, and sales nearly double in 15 days. 2 years earlier, Decathlon announced it wanted to become a sports brand that could take on Nike.

In March 2024, the group set out to stop being a retailer and become a brand, and its global profit lost 1 euro in every 7 the following year. Its industrial machine, which designs 6 out of 10 products and brings customers back more often than any competitor, is built for unit cost, not for desire. The 2025 return to affordability puts it back on the one battlefield its competitors can copy in a single season.

Chapters
00:00 A football under 3 euros
01:06 Becoming Nike
03:24 What the factory dictates
05:52 Price can be copied
08:14 The key takeaway

Sources: Decathlon group financial results 2023 to 2025, group communications on the March 2024 strategic overhaul and the 2025 return to affordability, Intersport's August 2025 price commitments, market shares of multisport retailers in France, IntoTheMinds analyses.

The full analysis, with all the charts: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/

This episode was written by Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, founder of the market research firm IntoTheMinds.

Get our market analyses every week: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/newsletter/inscription

#Decathlon #Sport #Retail #MarketResearch #Strategy