Getting Closer to Consumers Through Ethnography

Marketing and consumer researchers need to employ a dose of curiosity for understanding, more closely and deeply, groups or communities of consumers that are less familiar and more different from them. It can be sought by observation of individuals from the group of interest, listening to and talking with them, and possibly interacting with them… Read More

Jelmoli Prepares for a New but Different Chapter in Its Retailing Legacy

Jelmoli is a Swiss department store in Zürich well-known to residents and visitors of the city. Last year (2023) the retail brand celebrated “190 Years of Jelmoli” with the tagline “Full of Stories” (e.g., posted on the store’s front windows). However, this celebration also marks in all likelihood a conclusion of its function as a… Read More

Dual Meanings Embedded in Creative Logo Designs

Creative designs that can reveal something beyond what is initially perceived and reaslised intrigue viewers and attract them to the object of design (e.g., image of brand logo): implicit visual information, hidden meanings, a puzzle or metaphor. Inspiring designs can improve memorability of the brand and strengthen a positive brand attitude. However, the designed image… Read More

Globus: A Department Store Changes Its Face

A visitor returning to the flagship department store of the Swiss chain GLOBUS in central Zurich after a long absence is headed for a surprise. The visiting shopper is about to encounter on entry a completely different landscape — bright and flashy, with a large avenue stretching from the front entrance (on Bahnhofstrasse) to the… 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

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

An Applied Adaptation of Visual Metaphor Elicitation

There are themes, experiences and concepts that words cannot capture and express as instinctively and vividly as visual images. Verbal probing, alternately, may not be enough to invoke respectively what goes in the minds of consumers (e.g., thoughts and feelings, beliefs and associations). However, the combination of visual images, especially photographs, with the words of… Read More

Barbie’s 60th Birthday: Moving With Time

The Barbie Doll was created by Ruth Handler in 1959 with the thought of showing young girls (first of all her own daughter) what they can become when they grow up. Ever since then many variants of Barbie looks have been developed, manufactured and marketed by the company originally founded by her husband Elliott with… Read More