Charles McIntyre

Indulgent snack experience attributes and healthy choice alternatives.

Purpose – The aim of this article is to examine the perception of various snack alternatives and the relevant negative and positive associations they may have with key adult groups, including any potential barriers and drivers relating to the uptake of healthier snack options.Design/methodology/approach – The approach takes the form of a qualitative focus group study involving a series of key adult consumer groups, including those deemed more likely and those less likely to take up healthy snack options.Findings – Despite increased health factor awareness across key adult snacking groups, there remains a perception of food “snacks” as a worthwhile, if basically unhealthy, “treat” within their overall food consumption. Many adults did show some concerns about specific diet and health‐related aspects of many snack products and would like to be tempted by healthier versions. Amongst the drivers for healthy snack uptake, local source attributes were generally rated highly by all; these and other “natural” and...

Designing museum and gallery shops as integral, co-creative retail spaces within the overall visitor experience

Abstract A museum and art gallery experience study reveals that visitors view shop spaces as an integral part of the experience during a visit, therefore having the ability to support and expand the on-site and continued learning experience, rather than acting purely as souvenir shops – generating memories after the event. Museum and gallery shops could aid in the construction of meaningful, personal visit mythologies in an immersive, self-developmental event, corresponding to co-creative retail theory. It is proposed that shop spaces should be more integrated within a holistically designed visitor experience orientation (gestalt) than is apparent from impressions to be gained from the museum experience literature, which reveals a gap between curators and shop operation. For integration purposes, it is recommended that the shop space should be included in the provision of a mix of spatial types, each featuring differentiated qualities or characteristics. All spaces should be considered in a complimentary manner to deliver a synergistic balance of holistic, sociocultural-economic experience and flow for each visitor type, including the contribution of creative retail spaces.

Biscuit (cookie) consumption: Cognitive suspension to experience moments of perfection in another world than this!

Purpose – The aim is to investigate the choice and experience attributes of core – sweet (cookie) and savoury (cracker) – biscuits of a high premium, luxury or indulgent nature to investigate the possible opportunity for organic or other more healthily perceived product option developments.Design/methodology/approach – The approach taken is a qualitative focus group study involving a series of core user adult consumer groups, aged between 25 and the late 1960s, in a southern county of the UK.Findings – The adult consumption of biscuits involves a process that aspires towards an overall “better‐life”, sensual experience by momentarily escaping the everyday realm and aiming to emulate either a perceived “real” or a mythical, largely past‐related style of existence. This is often associated with meanings inherent in the terms “natural”, “rural”, “home‐baked” and “traditional” as well as “elegant” associations and production and selling agency values around small or local, pre‐modern source structures. Organi...

Service Students' Zoned Utility of Mobile-Technology: Implications for learning space & experience design

Abstract A study of services-sector management students demonstrated widespread organisational and entertainment utility relating to the use of mobile technology devices in and around campus environments. Nevertheless, although generally positively motivated towards ‘mobiles’ as social and personally integrated lifestyle and organisational aids, some negative attitudes were displayed towards extensive use of mobiles as Mlearning facilitators. These included an awareness of constant communicability, conspicuous technology consumption, solipsistic, diversionary and ‘lazy’ learning drawbacks. Defined limits were placed around various elements of technology within a UbiComp environment relating to social, study or work technology utility (tec-utility) zones with only limited crossover zones of tolerance.

Evolutionary Origins of Female and Male Shopping Styles

How stable are shopping styles of women and men across cultures? To find out, the authors develop a new scale that reliably measures differences between male and female shopping styles and is stable across cultures. They develop a conceptual model and hypotheses to test whether observed differences in gender shopping styles are likely to be innate or arise from socialization. Through a survey of consumers in seven countries, they show that males and females are evolutionarily predisposed to have different shopping styles. Counter to social structural theory, the observed differences in shopping style between females and males are greater in low-context cultures (higher gender equality countries) than in high-context cultures (lower gender equality countries). Empathizing—the ability to tune into another person’s thoughts and feelings—mediates shopping style more for female shoppers; systemizing—the degree to which an individual possesses spatial skills—mediates shopping style more for male shoppers. Therefore, retail segmentation between females and males appears to be of more managerial relevance than segmentation between cultures. Other managerial implications are also discussed.