Tore Kristensen

Corporate design: a tool for testing

Affirms the great need for corporate designs, yet states that the tests most frequently used are certainly not comprehensive. The reasons for these “partial” tests are explored (focusing on incorrect assumptions, as well as research design and methodology). Concludes that data collection was not completed, and that the next steps are to complete the testing of the current designs.

Horizontal alliances amongst small retailers in Brazil

Purpose – Application of the horizontal alliance paradigm has particularly relevance to small retailers. It is a powerful mechanism for independents and non‐integrated chain retailers to develop competitive advantage, maintaining and improving their performance. The purpose of this article is to analyse the theory of alliance in the context of the retail sector.Design/methodology/approach – Both quantitative and qualitative research was carried out with horizontal retail alliances in Brazil.Findings – Focusing on the alliances among independents and non‐integrated chain retailers, our discussion covers specifically the following issues: the reasons for forming a strategic alliance in retail; minimum criteria for the alliance activity amongst retailers; steps that managers must take to create a competitive retail alliance; critical core competencies to be developed on the retail alliance; types of retail alliances; and, finally, forms of strategic retail alliances and stages/steps to develop a retail allia...

Can design improve the performance of marketing management

Marketing management and design is assumed to be well performing when well integrated. Seen from a marketing management perspective, design is complementary and provides useful tools like visualisation and prototyping as well as empathy with the consumers. Jointly this can increase the performance of the company. Due to different cultures, languages and procedures marketing management often fails to deliver these advantages. The introductory essay provides an overview of methods to afford a better integration between the two and introduces a number of articles providing an overview and up-to-date analysis of the current situation.

Whose design is it anyway? Priming designer and shifting preferences

A series of studies is presented which investigates preference among similar but different designs within a product category. The variables of price, brand name and ‘priming designer’ are shown to shift preferences. Without brand names, consumers prefer a well-designed object. When supplied with information about brand names and designer, they may shift their preferences to designs they believe are ‘designer’ brands, even when the actual design is not.

Corporate communication in the emerging network economy

This paper draws on ideas in economics and game theory to develop a new theory of marketing in the emerging network economy. The paper argues that in a network economy, firms and consumers will confront “coordination problems”. With the emerging network economy all this becomes urgent because the availability and cost of information decreases. Also, timing issues become urgent as millions of people get access to the same information simultaneously. That explains why events where masses of viewers simultaneously participate in the same events become so important. The paper introduces a simple game theoretic model and discusses marketing applications and possible strategies. These strategies imply considerable use of communication resources in order to fulfil the common knowledge requirements.

Quality of Life: A Challenge to Design

It is argued that in order to design for quality of life, designers should focus on the capabilities of the users and the ‘affordances’ artifacts give to these capabilities. This article provides an approach within which various concepts are matched with the experiential, the social and the identifying nature of designs (products. objects and artifacts). The author discusses how these concepts can be used in problem-finding and problem-solving in the design process.

Is Good Design Good Business

IBM CEO Tom Watson made the claim, that ‘Good design is Good Business’ at one of the first Aspen conferences on design in the 1950s (Watson and Petre, 1991). It seems generally accepted, that companies such as Apple, Alessi and SONY have gained competitive advantages from design (Dumas and Mintzberg, 1989; Kotler and Rath, 1988). Books like ‘Winning by Design’ (Walsh et al. 1992) and magazines like Business Week and newspapers such as the Financial Times have promoted the claim that investment in design as well as simply using good design enhances the competitiveness of firms. With a few notable exceptions (Blaich and Blaich, 1993; Gemser and Leenders 2001; Hertenstein, Platt and Veryzer, 2005), however, there is very limited evidence for such claims. In addition the concept of design is not well-defined and is often regarded as a superficial and superfluous fashion.

When do Logos Talk to their Audience

This study is based on two experiments where the ability of a new logo to reach and audience is explored. The approach is inspired by cybernetics and is based on measuring the variation of the reception of a logo seen just once. The variation is measured as the combined variation of between-subjects (differences between individual receivers) and, in object variation which is the richness of content that is created in the message received by a single individual. A big variation between subjects means that they do not see the same and the assumption is that the message does not get clearly through to the audience. A big variation within-subject means that the individual receives a varied, deep, and nuanced message. The ability to do this rests partly on the ability to activate competences and experiences from the past and thus making sense. The findings are that few logo elements are received by audiences, but a few do. What characterizes them?

Contributions of consumer-perceived creativity and beauty to willingness-to-pay for design products

Consumer perception of creativity in design products equivalent in function was measured using global single-item ratings of creativity. The measure was found to have a high level of agreement between raters and have discriminant validity to another aesthetic construct, that of beauty. In two experiments using designer lamps and wrist watches as stimuli, the present study shows how creativity and beauty both positively influence consumer willingness-to-pay (WtP) for the designed product, but each explains different parts of the variance. The results show that it is essential to develop separate models of creativity and beauty evaluations in consumer psychology, in that they seem to be distinct factors, explaining different parts of the variance in their consequences on WtP.

Does visual communication get through to its audiences

Visual communication is often directed towards an assumed homogenous target group, a market- or segment. However, this study shows that such constructs as typical, average consumer, modal or blue or red segment can be misleading. Individuals and markets represent distinct levels of analysis. The logo is a prime each individual to receive the next message in a positive mood. In this paper, a distinction is made between how the message is received by the single individual and how the message is received by the market that is how it is received by the “average respondent”. The distinction is made between individual vs. market variation. A variation seen by the individual means that the message is received with its complexity and meaningfulness, while a big market variation means people understand different things and a Babylonian confusion is the outcome. Also differences between cultures are investigated but found to be limited compared to the between subject- or market variation.