A Road Map to Customer Insights

In the crossroads of marketing research and customer research, a field of customer insights is flourishing. Instead of talking merely about research findings and conclusions, practitioners (managers and professionals) are developing and discussing customer insights. The term ‘insight’ does sound deeper and more clever, with potentially more ingenuine and farther-reaching meanings and implications. Especially when… Read More

Facilitating Shopping With Visual Search

Consumers frequently tackle a difficulty when trying to trace a product similar to one they have seen somewhere and they wish to purchase. It could be a product already in their possession at home and they want to replace or complement it with a new one that looks alike, or it may be a product… Read More

A Combined Impact of Sight and Touch on Product Choice

There is ample research and articles on the roles and effects of each of the five human senses (vision, auditory-hearing, olfactory-smell, taste and touch) on perception and higher-level cognition, emotions, decision making etc. But the senses very often do not operate in isolation from each other — two or more senses can be activated together… Read More

An Illusion of Living in the 1970s: The Design and Experience

The cinema film ‘La Belle Époque‘ (France 2019, Director & Writer Nicholas Bedos) is intriguing, amusing, and in some moments fascinating. The story and scenery are quite unusual, having many aspects, and holding some surprises. Beyond the story of this romantic comedy, viewers are introduced to a special experiential production of past periods that customers… Read More

Is Inflation in Consumer Prices Lurking for a Bite?

Countries face several economic challenges while they are trying to recover from the coronavirus pandemic: recuperating the economy from a traumatic recession (shock-induced shutdown and negative growth); increased budget deficit, possibly leading to larger debt; combatting high (and stubborn) unemployment, together with changes in the job market. But reigniting the economy might be tied with… Read More

Laundry Detergent Pods Are Not Like Candies

Rounded shapes and playful colours, design features that are pleasant to the eye, can increase the appeal of a product to consumers. Visual design can thus be recruited to the benefit of product marketing. But what if the appearance of the product is misleading and might convey the wrong invitation to some consumers? For instance,… Read More

Retail in Recovery

Wherever relief from COVID-19 is evident, we can see signs of recovery in offline retail, that is at physical stores and shops. In the first months of 2021 countries have lapsed again into third and fourth waves of COVID and lockdowns, which caused a reversal of earlier signs of recovery experienced. But where a recent… Read More

Mapping Semantic and Visual Brand Associates

Brand associates are often conceived in verbal terms, as concrete descriptions and more abstract concepts; they may be captured by single words or longer phrases that express thoughts and emotions. But brands may be linked with visual images (pictures, drawings, photos) that capture the same brand ideas, sometimes even more efficiently than verbal expressions. The… Read More

Designing Customer Experiences Around Personas

When mapping customer journeys, it would help to design and direct them with regard to personas of customers, ‘profile’ concepts of plausible types of customers that seem real and approachable. Having the image of a customer before one’s eyes with human traits, background, attitudes and preferences, can make it easier to plan and prepare for… Read More