Open Innovation for event investment analysis

100 Open Startups
4 min readJun 20, 2023

Consumer behavior analysis is an essential strategy for corporations to better understand their products and services . Collecting and analyzing data on consumer behavior is essential for companies to identify better ways to grow their business, using the analysis of consumer patterns and preferences to make more assertive decisions about marketing strategies, communication, presence and product development .

The startup AntennasBI, founded in 2015, is an example of a company that offers behavior analysis to people across Latin America through their cell phones. AntennasBI captures information about the customer’s interaction with the product or service in real time. The data is then analyzed to provide valuable insights into the market, consumers, preferences, consumer geolocation and purchasing behaviours!

The startup stands out for tracking people and collecting relevant information to meet business objectives. AntennasBI has been successful in helping companies to better understand their consumers and thus segment them more effectively. Among other companies, Unilever, Danone and Grupo Bimbo have already used AntennasBI’s expertise in their business.

Case Antennas and Pernod Ricard: Open Innovation for event investment analysis

One of the successful cases of AntennasBI was with Pernod-Ricard, a French multinational, owner of the main brands of alcoholic beverages in the world!

Pernod Ricard identified that investing in events of different sizes was an important marketing action for its strategy. The company analyzed that the presence in a wide variety of events, from music festivals to agricultural exhibitions, fostered the growth of the brand in the country .

Thus, Pernod Ricard invested a significant amount of money in key areas to attract customers and increase the visibility of its whiskey, vodka and gin brands, such as Absolut, Beefeater, Ballantine’s, among others. However, the exact return on that investment could not be accurately measured. It was an uncalculated risk, a real leap in the dark.

Sponsorships at events were not cheap and there was no better strategy designed to know which event to invest in and which results would be achieved. It was with this scenario that the company signed an open innovation partnership, in 2022, with AntennasBI.

The startup, with its expertise in consumer behavior analysis , began to design a strategy using triangulation and geolocation techniques through mobile devices, with the BTL_ROI solution. Thus, with the action it was possible to determine the position of people, without the need for specific applications. Through the use of tags and activation via DMPs ( Data Management Platform ), AntennasBI was able to understand the number of people who visited specific places, such as the events sponsored by Pernod Ricard.

The startup’s strategy continued to be improved: they applied surveys, of approximately 15 to 20 minutes, via SMS, sent notifications on operator applications and even ads on social networks for event consumers.

According to Gustavo Lotufo, CEO of AntennasBI, “these questionnaires provided us with valuable information about people’s behavior and how they interacted with actions taken at events. With this data, we were able to measure the true return on each real invested by Pernod Ricard”.

Through these analyses, it was possible to understand which attributes are being built, which audience was most impacted and who is most likely to buy the products of the French multinational.

As a result of the partnership , AntennasBI was able to deliver information on which events are really worth investing in, which are the best actions for each occasion and data on the size and number of people who may become future customers of the company. As a result, the multinational can see clearly how much to invest and how to invest its communication budget through events.

“In the past, making investment decisions of this kind was challenging as little concrete information was available. However, thanks to AntennasBI, for the first time in history, it became possible to clearly measure the success of this type of investment”, says Gustavo Lotufo.

The CEO also reinforces that only with the use of mobile devices, without interfering with the experience of people who attend events, it is possible to obtain this crucial information.

With the results of the partnership, AntennasBI and Pernod Ricard signed several other projects!

Open Startups and Open Corps: the importance of collaboration in open innovation processes

“Without innovation, there is no change”, says Gustavo. The CEO adds that the partnership bore fruit thanks to the concern of Pernod Ricard executives, who saw the urgent need to innovate to remedy a pain that was already considered “normal” within the company.

For Gustavo, startups play an extremely important role in optimizing the processes and day-to-day activities of corporations. They are increasingly participating in the innovation ecosystem, and corporations that are not open to open innovation tend to be left behind in the race for new markets, products, services and customers. With the partnership between AntennasBI and Pernod Ricard, it was possible to understand the challenges and structure a process based on the division of tasks, clarity of objectives and experimentation. “Everything starts with pilots, tests, adjustments are implemented and then we run what worked, adjusting what went out of scope. That’s how it was with Pernod Ricard and AntennasBI’s BTL_ROI”, adds Gustavo.

AntennasBI was awarded in the Ranking 100 Open Startups for two consecutive years, guaranteeing a position among the best startups in the Big Data category. “It was fundamental for AntennasBI and for the other awarded companies to be recognized as leading startups in open innovation with corporations. We saw praise from all sides and a lot of opening doors for the ecosystem as a whole”, says Gustavo.

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