Michelle Lenaerts has worked for Thomas More Mechelen since 2000, where she specialised as a researcher in quantitative data analysis, survey design and data visualisation.
To measure is to know! This tile wisdom is the foundation of my profession-related passion: developing quantitative measurement tools, data analysis and data visualisation. Combined with qualitative depth to the 'why', numbers and statistics are my research religion. Over the past few years, I have been involved in very diverse research topics as a scientific collaborator at Thomas More, ranging from government communication, smartcities, circular economy, chatbots, insects in non-food applications, sustainable consumer behaviour, the impact of corona on our purchasing behaviour... to microalgae in food.
Although my profile is rather generalist and I take care of the quantitative research part, I am increasingly content with measurements around consumer adoption of innovations. Whether an innovation becomes a success depends partly on factors in the consumer's hands. The motivators and barriers associated with the willingness to 'give an innovation a try' do not depend exclusively on some socio-demographic characteristics, but are more strongly influenced by habits, information appearing in the media, health choices, attitudes towards the specific topic, our knowledge of environmental impact, among others. Specific to food innovations, taste, colour, smell, health benefits, price and previous experience also play a role. If this can be mapped on a large scale, a cluster analysis can produce magic quadrants. The insights are shared with various stakeholders in the innovation's production chain and provide a stepping stone to marketing strategies. In addition, you can also come to me for benchmark analyses for our 'Communication Monitor', with which we have already collected a wealth of information from dozens of Flemish cities and municipalities about how their inhabitants experience communication for several years.