This study explores the role of packaging design elements in shaping consumer perceptions and purchase intentions within the vice food category in order to facilitate healthier vice food choice. A 2 × 2 between-subject experiment was designed and conducted to test the hypotheses among Dutch consumers based on two product categories: chocolate cookies and yogurt dessert. The findings reveal that visual elements have a more substantial impact on consumer perceptions, particularly in the context of tastiness, highlighting their importance in vice food packaging. More specifically, visual cues that convey tastiness compared to healthiness are proved to be more effective in promoting higehr purchase intention. This study failed in confirm the hypothesis regarding the interplay between visual and textual elements but offers some insights for future research to build upon. Additionally, the study identifies aesthetic attractiveness as a significant driver of purchase intention, suggesting that consumers are more likely to be drawn to visually appealing packaging in vice food contexts. The research also explores the moderating role of General Health Interest (GHI), demonstrating that health-conscious consumers respond differently to packaging cues, even in indulgent product categories. These insights offer valuable implications for marketers and designers aiming to create effective packaging strategies in the vice food sector.

Under the topic of sustainable packaging, this research looks into the effects of material appearance (ecological vs. conventional), eco-label, and brand ethicality on consumers' perceived sustainability as well as the subsequent product quality evaluation and purchase intention. A 2 × 2 × 2 between-subject experiment was designed and conducted to test the hypotheses among Dutch consumers based on two product categories: chocolate paste and cereal bars. First, in both food categories, eco-labels and ecological-looking materials both trigger higher sustainability perception. In the cereal bar category, an interaction effect was found that the eco-label has a more positive impact on consumers' sustainability perception when it's applied to conventional-looking packaging rather than ecological-looking packaging. Second, in the chocolate paste category, higher brand ethicality brings higher quality evaluation and purchase intention but has no effect on sustainability perception. Third, in the chocolate paste category, contrary to the increased sustainability perception, quality evaluation and purchase intention get lower when ecological-looking material is applied. Fourth, in the chocolate paste category, when consumers sense a higher fit between the product and the brand, their perceived packaging sustainability, quality evaluation, and purchase intention all increase accordingly.

Flyco is a large airline company who has built its strategy emphasising on operational excellence. Yet, since competitors can now achieve similar results, they have expanded their strategy to offering excellent customer experience too, resulting in the foundation of the Customer Experience (CX) department. Nevertheless, Flyco notices their NPS is not rising above 50. One of the reasons is the silo-driven lay-out a typical corporate as Flyco has, where teams lack knowledge sharing. A way to bridge these silos is by using cross-functional collaboration, where multiple distinct functions come together to tackle complex problems with a multidisciplinary perspective.

This results in the research question: “How can Flyco improve the consistent implementation of customer needs throughout the customer journey through more effective collaboration between the different teams of the CX department?” During the research, multiple perspectives are taken into consideration. At first, the connection between collaboration and customer needs is defined to learn why the stated claim is currently a problem. Thereafter, the current way of collaboration between the different teams is reflected on by means of seven in-depth interviews with employees. Simultaneously, a literature review gives insights into what way effective cross-functional collaboration should be framed and which elements are essential. However, since multiple elements have a considerable effect on cross-functional collaboration, a decision needs to be made for a focal point to realise effective change at one, or a few of these elements. A quantitative analysis, filled in by the CX department, gives insight into where the department believes they could improve. The focus is put where most progress can be made for the CX department. This results in a focus on effective knowledge sharing between the different teams through more effective and open communication to lead the focus within the department towards the group.

Plenty literature has been written in knowledge management including multiple tools and methods. Nevertheless, earlier attempts in implementing a new knowledge management method have failed due to unacceptance of implementation by the employees. Therefore the behaviour of the employees needs to change. Consequently, literature in behaviour change is reviewed, resulting in four behaviour change techniques most appropriate for this problem. Five concepts are established through combining cocreation insights on the behaviour change techniques with knowledge management tools and methods. These concepts in unison form a system for a profound knowledge management, which ideally are all developed and applied. However, for the purpose of this thesis, the concept ‘Community of Practice (CoP)’ is chosen for further development.

The concept focuses on knowledge sharing through a group, sharing a domain/passion, a practice, and a community, coming together to discuss a question or statement stated by one of the teams of the CX department. People can apply when they are interested to learn more or have gained expertise in this area. The group of employees form a community group where they run through five steps to get an agreement on the topic. The results will be shared with the department for knowledge sharing.

Product appearance can contribute to market success, which has been addressed by many research and practical cases. Visual Novelty, as an important aspect of product appearance, is proved to influence consumer purchase decisions. A brand is also used frequently to assist in making purchase decisions. It might be interesting for product designers and brand managers to know how different brands should choose the proper level of visual novelty to gain consumer preference. The present research investigates the joint influence of brand strength and visual novelty on consumer preference by drawing on the concepts of purchase motivations and roles of brands. This research deployed an experimental study through an online questionnaire, in which people were asked to evaluate their attitudes towards a novel design and a typical design for electric water kettles and Bluetooth speakers. Contrasting to the hypotheses, the results show that people more strongly prefer a typical-looking product for a strong brand than a weak brand. Moreover, the preference for a typical design is weaker and less significant for a weak brand. The possible reason could be that the product categories used in this research are mainly driven by utilitarian motivations instead of the predefined utilitarian and expressive motivations. People pursue little expressive need, so a visually novel product may be unnecessary for self-expression of uniqueness. Conversely, a more typical design might better fulfill the practical need for products and hence is preferred. Meanwhile, a strong brand helps to create more confidence about the possible performance quality and hence product choices than a weak brand, so the preference for a typical design is stronger for a strong brand than a weak brand.

The extended use of internet has digitalized many daily life practices in human life, including shopping, in the 21st century. While consumers used to experience the products mainly in store, now they must base their purchases whatever they see on the screen. Thus, the visual product design directly influences the digital buyers in their product purchases, but how? The earlier studies show that a product’s appearance can have aesthetic and symbolic value for consumers, can communicate functional characteristics and give a quality impression (practical value), and can communicate the ease of use (ergonomic value) (Creusen & Schoormans, 2005). Although these studies explore the role of product appearance or visual product design in consumer purchases, none of them particularly targets online purchases. This study aims to fill this knowledge gap in the literature through qualitative research. The qualitative research, conducted as a part of master graduation assignment (see Appendix A to read the whole assignment), explored whether the different roles of product appearance exist in consumers’ process of product evaluation in online environments and to what extent these roles influence the consumers. Also, product related or contextual factors which may potentially have an impact on consumer responses to the product form in the digital environment were researched in the scope of this project. The complete online shopping experience was designed for the participants, and they were asked to perform two simple tasks, purchasing a pair of headphones and a laptop stand through the test website. Later, they were interviewed on their choice reasons for the products. The interviews done with the participation of forty-three subjects was transcribed and coded first, then content analysis was done to learn the frequencies of each concept existing in online shopping practice. The research findings showed that different roles of product appearance exist in the consumer product evaluation process in digital environments, although the consumer responses to these roles vary for different product categories. For instance, in the experiment, some participants based their purchase on attention drawing value of the product form for a socially significant product category, headphones, whereas this value was not mentioned at all by any of the participants for the other category. Additionally, the influence of some contextual and product factors on the consumer responses to the product form was detected based on the research results. For example, an impact created by in-context images on consumer perception of symbolic value was noticed in the experiment. As a result, this study filled the knowledge gap in the topic “the role of product form in online purchase” as much as the study limitations allow.

Internet retailers use different online presentation methods to provide detailed product-oriented information. In this way, communicating the materials of products is difficult but necessary for online retailing. The consumer cannot directly touch and feel the products, which may lead to disappointment, as the material of the product they ordered may differ from what they thought based on the online information. Internet retailers need to choose suitable solutions for presenting their products online, which is influenced by various and multi-dimensional factors. Therefore, getting a systematic understanding, which is about advantages and disadvantages of different methods for presenting certain products in order to get a correct impression about the material of products on a website, is really necessary for the companies with online retailing demands.

With those considerations, a research starts in the field of online clothing shopping in order to study and deepen the understanding of popularly used presentation methods on web pages for better communicating the materials of products. After the studying of the related researches and 19 popular clothing shopping websites in Europe and China, a experiment with 90 female participants and 12 interviews are conducted to investigate the effects of 5 different combinations of online product presentation methods on consumers' actual and perceived material understanding and further assesses the perceived information and effectiveness of these presentation methods.

The quantitative results from the experiment and the insights are analyzed, summarized and interpreted mutually. Not only have the deep understandings been built for the material perception and better material communication of the selected products, but also the insights and inspirations could be used to for further researches related with online material communication. The advantages and disadvantages of different presentation methods for presenting clothing fabric are compared and interpreted, which comes up with a design guideline for helping the company to present the products online. The showcases of the implementation of the design guideline are also made.

Raynaud’s syndrome is a common disease which causes arteries to narrow, limiting the blood flow to the skin. An attack can cause your fingers to turn cold, white and blue and is accompanied with feelings of numbness, prickling and pain.

The most common cause of a Raynaud’s attack is a cold environment. Heated gloves could therefore help Raynaud’s patients, not only by lowering the painful feelings during attacks, but by raising the ambient temperature in order to prevent them.

A pair of elegant heated gloves has been designed, prototype and iterated with the input from user from the target group.

By preventing Raynaud’s attacks these gloves can reduce and prevent pain, make the wearer look good and give her back the power to user her hands in any daily situation.

Packaging made from renewable sources has become more important in our society every day. Bio-based packaging is a sustainable alternative to petrochemical plastic packaging since it reduces the dependency on fossil fuel resources and lowers CO2 emissions. Tetra Pak has recently introduced the bio-based package in the market. Tetra Pak’s bio-based packaging uses wood to produce the carton and sugarcane to produce the plastic coatings of the package and the cap. However, they want to know consumers’ opinions about bio-based packaging, and how to best communicate this concept on drinks packaging. This graduation research project shows the results of two studies carried out in the Netherlands on beverage cartons with bio-based plastic. The first study is based on a qualitative approach which discusses consumers’ preconceptions and perceptions on beverage cartons with bio-based plastic. A second study is an experimental approach which tests what kind of informational cues (logos, infographics, and storytelling) better represent the concept in terms of clarity, understanding, and attractiveness on the package. It was identified in this project that consumers lack knowledge in sustainable packaging alternatives, especially bio-based packaging. Most of the consumers find the bio-based term confusing and abstract. However, in this study consumers have shown their willingness to contribute to the environmental impact and willingness to purchase bio-based packaging alternatives once they understand the concept. Finally, this project offers theoretical and practical implications for the company Tetra Pak. To have a clear understanding of what the concept is, words that consumers can easily understand should be used to describe the bio-based concept such as plant-based package or package made of renewable resources. In addition, information displayed on the package should emphasize the amount of bio-based material used on the package to enhance consumers’ trust in the brand. Lastly, the correct disposal of the package should be emphasized to consumers to avoid confusions.

The graduation project, “East vs. West: Influence of Visual Cues of Packaging on Perceived Product Quality of Mayonnaise”, focuses on food product packaging, how they may be perceived differently across cultures and how they can be tailored to better suit specific cultures if necessary. The project looks into what aspects of food packaging makes consumers perceive the product to be of higher quality (RQ1), higher aesthetic value (RQ2), and increased preferences (RQ3). Last but not least, the study examines what differences there may be in consumer perception across cultures in the East (Asia) and West (Europe) for food packaging (RQ4, H1 & H2). Participants from Indonesia, Vietnam, Italy and the UK were involved in this cross-cultural study.