Getting special offers at the right time
- Published
How Sentiance and other marketing companies are targeting consumers based on time
"My morning routine starts at 5.45am... my personal dashboard says I'm a business traveller, a heavy commuter, a workaholic."
Toon Vanparys sounds like the chief executive of any ambitious technology start-up.
He gets up early, works hard, and has bundles of enthusiasm. Essential requirements in any business, where it's not enough just to have an innovative idea.
You need a plan to scale it up, and the will to grow it quickly. All of which sounds terribly tiring, and goes a long way to explaining why the popular conception of today's entrepreneur is someone in their 20s or 30s.
At 58, Mr Vanparys, the boss of Sentiance, a Belgium-based start-up, is old enough to be many a start-up bosses' dad.
Sentiance boss Toon Vanparys (middle front) is the oldest employee at the young start-up
As he points out, with a smile: "It's pretty rare if I'm not the eldest one around the table at internal or client meetings."
Time-sensitive data
Sentiance helps marketers make sense of what they call the different personal time zones each of us inhabits.
If you're someone who has a takeaway coffee on the way to work between 9.30am and 10am every weekday, for instance, then 9.30am would be when the coffee shop you are passing would send you a message with an offer.
Sentiance provides marketers with data so they can target consumers with time-sensitive offers
While that may sound rather Orwellian, Sentiance says that consumers opt in to sharing their data on various mobile phone apps.
As a result, Sentiance can collect up to half a million points of data on a consumer each day, and use that to build a profile or "personal dashboard" for marketers to personalise their targeting.
So has Antwerp-based Sentiance discovered the future of marketing via mobile phone data?
"It's essentially a really new thing," says mobile analyst Ian Maude of Enders Analysis. "It's made possible by us having smart-phones.
"It's very competitive, Sentiance have an interesting take on it, but they're not the only game in town."
Technology investor Eileen Burbidge of Passion Capital in London says: "Sentiance need to deliver actionable insights and not just more data.
"If it can say this offer is more interesting, and there's more take up as a result, then that's really interesting."
Serial entrepreneur
Sentiance is the latest in a string of start-ups Mr Vanparys has run since the 1980s.
"Of course the world has become completely digital, but for me this is an evolution." he says.
"In my first job we switched from telex to the fax machine. That was pretty exciting!"
Mr Vanparys only worked for someone else for his first four years in business. Since then he's been setting up and building fast-growing, innovative sales and marketing companies.
And he believes all technology start-ups can benefit from the team-building skills of a seasoned entrepreneur.
"When I started in business, people looked up to their boss," he says.
"Today it's the boss who's creating great teams, and I look up to my team every day, wishing to be as clever as they are.
"Hoping and working to keep them together and offer the right perspectives. There are a lot of young entrepreneurs today and that is great. They get a lot of attention as they disrupt existing businesses.
"But most of them also have mentors, coaches, business angels who support and advise them and bring them to a higher level."
Belgium and balance
Antwerp is a fashionable city with a university and a growing start-up scene. It's a place where Mr Vanparys says Sentiance can attract a blend of people with the right skillsets and the right number of years on the clock.
Toon Vanparys has been working in start-ups since the 1980s
"We have all ages, people leaving university and people with industry background which are important for us. We see age going up because we need more experience as clients' demands become more important.
"A good mix of ages and skills is something that really appeals to clients. It gives confidence to have a mix of grey hair and dead metal lovers."
The fact that Sentiance employs a broad mix of ages is appropriate when you consider the company's aim is to be at the heart of the "personalisation storm that is coming".
So what else does the Sentiance personal dashboard have to say about Mr Vanparys data?
"It says rural home, city worker, legal and anticipative driver, dog walker, restaurant lover and not sporty," he says. "This sounds pretty boring but fairly correct. It misses that I like to be on the water, love horse riding and that I like to work with great teams."
That latter point might explain why Mr Vanparys is a workaholic. Although this may change over time, if he can follow the example set by his younger team members.
"Today, even ambitious young people pay more attention to a work-life balance. In the end, that's not a bad thing."
The Digital Disruptors is a series about the people and companies shaking up business with new technology.
