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

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

Aesthetics Can Have Intelligence

Aesthetics is a fundamental aspect of product design. The visual design of a product affects the quality of consumers’ interaction with it, their usage of the product, and actually the product experience as a whole. Aesthetic appearance in particular contributes to the pleasure of viewing and utilising a product, whether it is a physical artefact… Read More

Building Experiences Around Tea

Drinking good quality tea is an experience inseparable from the product ‘tea’ and its attributes. The flavour and aroma of the tea are experienced by our senses (taste as well as smell). The attributes of a drink product like tea have to be felt, and consumers now are more interested in that experience than in… Read More

The Attraction of Colourful Displays of Merchandise

Colour has a strong attraction power: it can capture visual attention faster than other design features; it can be inviting and appealing; and colours can evoke specific feelings and emotions of consumers. Furthermore, colours may play an important role in establishing a brand image. Henceforth, colour serves in particular as a primary tool in store… Read More

Showing Fresh Produce of Vegetables and Fruits in Stores

In many food stores or departments, among the first things the shopper meets after entry is the display of fresh produce of vegetables and fruits. It is often the first station in the shopping trip. The produce may be presented on counters or ‘gondolas’, positioned in the centre of a wide-spaced area, and on shelves… Read More

Extracting the Meaning, Visually

Visual rhetorical figures are not so common in advertising; good examples are hard to find. They are used infrequently probably because they require more elaboration by consumers-viewers to interpret the implicit meaning embedded in a visual rhetorical representation. Nevertheless, considering the increasing use of images in many spheres of life, including in marketing contexts, and… Read More

Recording Open-Ended Answers in Video

A new capability has been added to consumer and customer surveys in the past few years: Capturing the answers of respondents to open-ended questions in video, recorded in particular by a respondent on his or her mobile phone in selfie-mode. For many users of smartphones it should come as a natural and instinctive way to… Read More