Gender Inequality In India Essay

Imagine yourself in the shoes of a person who has been oppressed their entire life. Imagine all the laws that were made to protect you have not been effective one bit. Imagine yourself as a minority in the second largest community in the world. Yes, I am talking about the women in India. Why do some women live like slaves when the men thrive as the superior race in India Customs, traditions, rustic beliefs are some of the answers that advocate male superiority in the country. Some of the facts that you read a1bout women on the internet are outrageous. According to a survey done in 2011 every 42 minutes, an incident of sexual harassment takes place. Every 43 minutes, a woman is kidnapped. Every 93 minutes, a woman is killed. Every 102 minutes, a dowry death. Surprised yet? These are only a few from the thousands of facts. Women are discriminated on a daily basis in the society, workplace and even at home while men on the other hand live like the emperors of the society. India portrays the image of society with men holding the whips, and taking control. It is as common to find women oppressed in the cities, as much as they can be oppressed in the remote villages. Majority of the women in India live in the fear of raising their voices, for they have been robbed of their rights and have been imprisoned to a world where they are voiceless. Even though today’s women are far more modern and independent, they are still haunted by the views and believes of the older generation where women are meant to be ideal housewives who take care of the family, feed them, maintain them and nothing more, while men are free to decide their future and choose what they want to be. A woman has equal rights as a man, she can choose the life she wants and the way she wants to live it. She shouldn’t be burdened with the views of the society or tradition. It is tough to believe that when 82 per cent of the men are educated only 65 per cent of women in India were lucky enough to have had the liberty to attend school. This shows  the ignorance and negligence of the parents who fail to ensure the education of their girl child. It is not surprising that India has the lowest workforce participation rate from women. You might think the few women who make their own living lead a better life, well think again. Only 4 out of every 10 women take part in a corporate office. The work participation rate of men in India is almost double as that of women. Women continue to be concentrated in jobs with low pay and authority levels placing limits on their overall access to income, status and power while men continue to dominate the top positions of the firm ensuring higher payment and better job security. The numbers of women that hold managerial positions in India are exceptionally low. Multinational companies prefer men to be the face of their organization to be more appealing to the public. On top of all the work load and discrimination, women go through a lot of mental as well as sexual harassments at work. There are constantly challenged by the nature of their work and the environment they are placed to work in. Unlike men the work of a woman does not end outside the doors of the office, she gets back home to take on the next set of mundane tasks. From the very beginning a girl is taught to do the household works while her brothers are treated like kings. Boys of the family have the rights to be out as long as they want and when a girl misses her curfew by a few minutes all hell breaks loose. It is almost like she has no voice of her own, everyone else makes a decision for her. Let it be a child or a full grown women, she never escapes the discrimination. In the modern world where men and women are working members of the family, the wife is still expected to come home at the end of the day and take care of the rest of the family and attend to their needs. She is expected to provide and nurture others with nothing in return while the only duty of the man is to earn for the family. Statistics shows that an average woman in India spends almost 10 years of her life in the kitchen while an average man at most would have spent 4 years. In India physical abuse of Indian women is high ranging from 22-60 percent and the suicide attempts due to violence and torture is shocking. 74.8 percent of women who reported violence have attempted to commit suicide. What is more surprising is that these statistics are from within  the four walls of their â€Å"safe home†. Despite the efforts of many women and political group to end discrimination against women, it still goes on. Every now and then a strike or a rally is conducted to educate the youth the importance of women in the society but the enthusiasm and the energy of these programs dies away the next day. Women will not have their rights and freedom in the society until there is a change in the mindset of men. This is the twenty first century, along with the development in science and literature we need to develop a society where women are no longer discriminated, a society where women and men hold equal positions at work and at home. We need work towards a future in which every girl gets to define who and what she wants to be. The question, though, how far away is that future?

The Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation

When you watch any movie, TV show or documentary on World War Two, there is one quote that you hear in almost every single one of them. This timeless and moving quote is â€Å"a date that will live in infamy. † This was the opening line said by Franklin D Roosevelt in his National address the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is one of the most replayed and well known speeches in American history. It was the declaration of war against the Empire of Japan and entered the United States into one of the greatest wars it would take part in. Franklin D Roosevelt uses pathos, ethos and logos to deliver a resounding speech for the declaration of war and the entrance of the United States in to World War Two. He essentially assigns a third of the speech to each one of these rhetorical speaking tools. The speech was given at 12:30 p. m. on December 8th 1941 to a joint session of congress and was broadcast over radio and television. It was key for the president to get the people as a whole for the war and united for the cause. He wanted to arouse as many strong emotions from the people as possible. Luckily for him this was very easy to accomplish. At every point in history the American people have exploded with outrage at every deceitful military tactic ever used by another nation or people against America. The populace becomes very motivated to take the fight to the enemy to uphold core American values such as patriotism and justice. A prime example of this was the sinking of the U. S. S. Maine. The ship was unexpectedly sunk by Spaniards in the Havana harbor of Cuba. This event is considered the precipitating event of the Spanish-American war. He plays upon the circumstances in the same way that the Americans did with this instance back in 1898. He portrays America as a purely passive victim through his diction in the portion of the speech. FDR mentions multiple times that America and Japan still had ongoing peace talks and that the attack was completely unprovoked. He elegantly uses Pathos at the throughout his speech and really harps on Americas emotions about the event. After Franklin D Roosevelt talks about the surprise attack upon Pearl harbor, he goes on to list all of the other military advances Japan made shortly afterwards. This list of attacks is viewed as him trying to convince the American people why it is logical and necessary for their country to go to war with this aggressive nation. He lists islands all across the pacific and under American control. Each statement is staccato and kept to the point, followed a pause to let each one individually sink in. He says when each attack happened and where. This is a particularly ominous portion of the speech, and was expertly done by the president. Logical explanations are very important to the American people and are the primary basis of why we do what we do. In the last part of the speech Franklin D Roosevelt makes an effort to talk about the character of the American people. Our countries ethics and moral values are the staple of our nation and the reason our people are willing to do everything necessary to preserve and protect it. This acknowledgment of the American ethos is a testament to the greatness of this country and why the war must be fought and will be won. But the biggest portrayal of this ethics and patriotism shown by Roosevelt is unbeknownst to most Americans at this time. The president had polio early in his life, and was paralyzed from the waist down, but he refused to let the American people know this. When he gave the speech he walked up to the podium and stood tall. This is a perfect example of the determination of the American heart to never let bad circumstances stop someone from what they must do. I consider this one of the most important and powerful speeches ever given on American soil. It speaks to every true Americans heart through patriotism and moral fiber. Franklin D Roosevelt delivered the speech fantastically and ignited a war engine within the United States that was unparalleled at the time. This speech is still a powerful symbol today of a great and shaping time of our country and its people.

National Initiatives Essay

Many national initiatives have been developed over the years as society becomes more progressive and tolerant, the results of these legislative regulation at every level from international law all the way down to individual practice policy have an effect on anti-discriminatory practice in health and social care systems Conventions and fundamental and regulation European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950 Article 14 in this convention concerns discrimination and prohibits discrimination based on many different factors such as Race, Sex, Age etc. It also can extend to protect against discrimination of different sexual orientation and legal rights of people under national law. In terms of Health and social care and anti-discriminatory practice this Article is very important as it sets the basis for a non-discriminatory Health a Social care System. This article states in essence that by and large everyone has the right to be treated without being discriminated against for any illogical reason such as a person not being treated because they mentally Ill. It should mean also that more health professionals cannot be hired based on discrimination from the employer against other applicants. E.G a dental practice picks a Caucasian applicant over an Asian Applicant based purely on their own prejudice against Asian people. Sex Discrimination Act 1975 This act dictates that men and women are protected by law from being discriminated against on the bases of their sex or marital status. This act gives men and women the rights to the same level of treatment by health professionals and to attain the same positions as one another. This makes a more diverse workforce and in health & social care which is a diverse environment, this is a good thing. Codes of Practice and Charters Codes of practice are enforced by individual practices and Healthcare Centres, These are all similar in most respects but usually are specified to the practice itself. For example a Dentist and a Hospital for the mentally infirm will have different codes of practice due to the complete difference in patient, treatment and the overall healthcare plan. But this show’s just some of the benefits and uses of practice codes in healthcare as it allows room for maximum patient care. These codes of practice however generally address what is considered to be discrimination in the practice and what sanctions follow if any of these codes are broken. This helps to ensure that all employees are aware what discriminatory practice is and this allows no excuse when discriminatory practice is carried out by and employee. Organisational Policies and procedures Organisational policies and procedures affect various things in health & social care including positive promotion of individual rights, advocacy, staff development and training, complaints procedures, confidentiality. Promoting individual rights Individual rights cover a large range of rights and good organisational policies cover the protection of these against discrimination. People’s individual rights in the health and social system must be protected against any infringement on them e.g. their personal beliefs. Advocacy An advocate is someone who stand’s in the place of and speaks for someone who is not able to represent themselves, e.g. an advocate for a mental patient or a child. This person is responsible for said person and should only act in their best interests. Advocates promote anti discriminatory practice by giving a voice to those without one, stopping discrimination based on lack of social ability. Staff development and training It is essential that staff are trained properly in anti-discriminatory practice, this allows them to develop as professional’s with a duty to uphold the rights of individuals and to work against discrimination where seen. Complaints procedures and confidentiality Complaints procedures must be followed up quickly and efficiently as any possible discrimination must be investigated and also that complaints processed properly can make for improvements in the delivery of healthcare. Patient’s confidentiality must be kept at all times as any illness is private to whomever has it. National initiatives are in place for a reason, practices are still working every day to promote anti-discriminatory practice, the idea to produce an equal, quality and efficient healthcare system that works for everyone is still not a complete reality but with more initiatives and good practice it could be.

How well Durex is managing their product line and make recommendations Essay

How well Durex is managing their product line and make recommendations for the future - Essay Example The same set of benefits from more products lead to ambiguity and consumer choose one on the cost of other, which often decline the market share for one product in favor of other. The onion is designed from the philosophy and commitment of business for providing aid maintaining health of people while allowing living happily. Company is maintaining product’s life with augmented product line and that’s strategy seems viable increase product life. Product life cycle refers to the actual position of the brand and its product line the market (Grieves, 2005a). Four phases of the time shows the future potential of growth for making investments (Terzi et al., 2010). These four phases include (Grieves, 2005b): Maturity where brand successfully achieved its potential growth and generating high revenues while moving towards expectancy by loosing essence by the time. Here investment is made to operate and reinforce the brand. The product life cycle is derived from the fact that Durex is earning high revenues and expanding the maturity phase by continuous extensions in product and communications as the blue line in the given graphic shows the extensions of brand to survive in long-run. Griffin (2012) described BCG (Boston Consulting Group) matrix as the evaluation tool for the relative to other brand present in the market. BCG technique is utilized to plot the potential of the product in the market and make investments accordingly (Schawel & Billing, 2014; Johnson et al., 2011). Four quarters of the matrix presents following categories (Doherty & Lu, 2012): The matrix shows evidence that brand is in the phase of moving from Stars to cash cows and relatively occupy a very large market share, so the competition level for the brand is not very vital in short-term. By looking at the market growth, Dettol is at the top position, which give the idea that in long-run brand will have to face competition also for investment decisions of

Phonological Aspects of English Teaching and Learning #2 Research Paper

Phonological Aspects of English Teaching and Learning #2 - Research Paper Example As the number of non-native English speakers rises due to globalization, there is a growing interest in phonology as the original language, which is fundamentally Standard English, has undergone some modifications (Mohammed and Alzughaibi, 2012). The purpose of this research paper is to analyze the phonological aspects of teaching and learning English by Arabic students who are not native English speakers. The several variants of English make it a wide area of research. Most ESL (English as a second language) teachers agree on the necessity of teaching explicit pronunciation in language courses (Montrul, 2010). While confidence in pronunciation facilitates the learners’ interactions with native speakers and improves their linguistic development, poor pronunciation masks good language skills and condemns learners to less academic, social, and professional advancement than they deserve (Clark, Yallop & Fletcher, 2007). When learners interact more with native speakers, they will greatly improve their pronunciation, but their hindrance stems from the fact that such interactional skills do not come naturally. As Kavaliauskiene (2009) points out, foreign language is influenced by their mother tongue and learners analyze and digest the information they receive from the perspective of their mother tongue first and then the new foreign language. Acknowledging this observation, it can also be said that the Arabic L1 phonological system can either facilitate or interfere with the learning of the L2 English phonological system. More specifically, it can be demonstrated that Arab learners insert vowels unintentionally in the onset and coda of some English syllables. For example, the syllable structures in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) did not allow clusters of the type CCC initially as English language did. So, as a result, the Arabic learners of English will insert the high front short

Work Schedule Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Work Schedule - Assignment Example Given this consideration, it is imperative to come up with a low cost customer service employee daily assignment schedule. The aim of this study was to utilize Linear Programing (LP) to review low- cost customer service employee assignment schedule options. The additional objectives included were to depict the necessity to test theses results for sensitivity to different constraints in order to include a number of total part time and increased labor cost due to non typical days. These models were created by the use of the Microsoft Excel solver to calculate the LP model. The variety of constraints that were included were: a minimum number of customer representatives per hour, mandatory full time shift schedules include a lunch break of one hour, a standard pay for full time and part time employees, a maximum number of total part time hours and ultimately, a requirement to minimize total wage costs (Tsogas, 2001). The results form the excel sheet indicate than scenario 3 will be the best as it is efficient and effective. This scenario allows for a minimum and a maximum number of full time employees per shift to maintain minimum levels of leadership with our customer services staff at all times, reasonable lunch and dinner will schedules and a maximum part time hours contribution of 50 percent. This will ensure a relaxation of the 50% constrain on the hours that will be worked on by part time customer service employees. Based on the requirements of the proposal to develop a minimum cost daily assignment schedule for the customer service employees at the Acme Mexico city star, the table will show a clear indication of how the LP model was developed to achieve optimal efficiency at a minimal cost to the company (DuBrin, 2009). From the table, it is evident that an integer Liner program was developed to address the labor restrictions amongst other consideration that were brought forward. The model used the develop this assignment

With specific reference to post-1990s developments, critically Essay - 2

With specific reference to post-1990s developments, critically evaluate the scope of the doctrine of humanitarian intervention under Article 2 of the United Nations Chapter - Essay Example In addition, this paper analyses the structural reform proposals of the UN Charter and the challenges it is currently facing. The various current matters of Security Council reform financing and proposals of the UN Charter are also discussed (Latif 2000, p.25). The United Nations Charter was born forty four years ago and it was as a result of the sufferings caused by the Second World War. The main purpose of the above mentioned Charter was to secure the upcoming generation from the impacts of the war. Moreover, the United Nations Charter aimed at correcting the League of the Nations’ weaknesses. The leadership of the United Charter rests on the highest authorities. Nevertheless, the challenges as a result of the Cold War barred the UN Charter from carrying out its main goals of the maintance of peace and security. The cold war was accompanied by a hostile environment and the UN could not perform its key role to implement the provisions made in the Charter, which were related to international security and peace. Despite the hostile environment presented by the Cold war, the United Nations pursued its Charter purposes in various fields such as in the improvement of social standards for individuals, decolonization and in the protection of human rights ((Mendlovitz & Weston 1995, p.13). Moreover, there were some adjustments that were made to the UN Charter and this enabled it to cope with various threats imposed to the international security and peace. The establishment of the UN Charter led to various dramatic changes in the world structure of peace and security. The above organizations came up with various ways of solving the challenges they came across. For instance, in order to eliminate the powers used by high authorities during the Cold War, the UN Charter established various peacemaking (Mingst & Karens 1995, p.29) and it took the role of the Security Council in maintaining international peace and

The Times of Harvey Milk connection to Sociology Essay

The Times of Harvey Milk connection to Sociology - Essay Example ranciscans participated in the protest rally after the murder and they expressed their anger by indulging in violent activities including attack on police vehicles. People were more furious on the leniency shown to White, during the trial procedure. (Profile/milk, time.com). It is very interesting to view this movie in the context of sociological theories, and especially the hero Harvey Milk, due to the concepts of deviance and conflicts involved, through out his life. All the deviant activities and conflicting events including his assassination and the resulting violence were illustrating the various aspects of different sociological theories of deviances and conflicts. Every conflicts and perceived deviances occurred as a result of the courageous life practiced by Harvey Milk, by questioning the conventional ideas and traditional social perceptions. Conflict theories suggest that society and culture influences individual behavior. Economic and social inequality in a society is cited as the most significant cause of conflict. According to conflict theorists every society will be economically unequal. The most important and influential position are handled by powerful people in a society. (pathway2, sociology.org.uk). In this movie also it is evident that the Harvey Milk being a member of a gay community was discriminated by the general society, especially the governing class. The protagonist of the movie, Harvey Milk, is suffering mainly from the inner conflicts. The socio economic environment in which he was brought up was sufficient enough to create conflict in his own inner sense. While dealing with other people his sociological background influenced him. Conflicts are created through out the structure of the society presented in the movie. Conflict in the society is instigated by competition. There are three assumptions related to conflict theory which are suggested by the traditionalists. Interests of various groups in the society are the one aspect of

Marketing Management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Marketing Management - Assignment Example Clustered market might reveal distinct preference clusters, called natural market segments. Own brand with fashionable and price sensitive consumer who looks for more modern looking footwear but price conscious because short duration of styles, actively targeting people between age group of 35 to 45 years. (b). Marketers advocates a need based market segmentation approach. Robert J. Best (2000) proposed seven step process and these are i. needs-based segmentation ii. Segment identification iii. Segment attractiveness iv. Segment profitability v. segment positioning vi. Segment 'Acid test' vii. Marketing mix strategy. For effective segmentation process, the market segment must be i. Measurable ii. Substantial iii. Accessible iv. Differentiable v. Actionable. Now on the basis of above 5 parameters we would discuss Clark's segmentation process. Clark's market segment could be measurable. As we know that consumer expenditure on footwear is increasing by 3.5% producing an additional GBP 166 million. Clark's brand is controlling 10% of consumer expenditure on footwear and over 30% of children shoe market. Targeted market segment of Clark's is comparatively and young affluent generation between age group of 18 to 30. This generation is fashion driven, ready to spend money and have earning. They are looking for more modern designed, trendy, easy to wear, comfortable and stylish foot wears. This age group has the potential to buy as well as influence the other segments also. So Clark's segments are measurable. This market segment is substantial also. A large number of persons belong to this age group. They have similar kind of needs. They want to wear exclusive designs that have brand name also. Clark is known for its quality as well as for its brand name so when Clark has launched the specific products, which fulfilled the needs of, the new market segment, people tend to buy those products. This segment has been easily accessible and Clark has reached to them effectively through advertising with catchy slogan via modern communication media i.e. through T.V and terrestrial and satellite channels. This young people between age 18 to 30 are easily distinguishable through their attitudes. The second segment, which Clark is targeting, is between age group of 35 to 45 who are fashion oriented but more prices sensitive as well as also make decision while buying shoes for their children. So they are decision-makers also. They have the purchasing power and they are looking for style as well as comfort. These segments have different needs and requirements than any other segment. So no two segments could be mixed up. Finally Clark has formulated an effective integrated flexi communication strategy to attract its newly targeted segm ent, which is predominantly fashion oriented. This fashion oriented affluent segment of younger people creates a major market potential in terms of buying practices and tendency to do expanses on fashion oriented objects like footwear. So if we evaluate keeping in mind the different segments of Clark we could easily find that Clark's segmentation process is good but needs

Theme of loveliness Essay Example for Free

Theme of loveliness Essay John Keats is one of the prominent Romantic poets. His life encapsulates a lot of pain and suffering due to the loss of his family members and also his unrequited love for Fanny Browne. Anything in its authentic and original form can be regarded as beauty. Similarly, for Keats beauty is synonymous with Truth. It is in this pursuit of beauty that he completely forgets his pains and sufferings and also the world around him. Thus, he transcends into an imaginary world. Keats saw beauty in truth and truth in beauty. He never escaped the realities of life in pursuit of the beautiful visions of his imagination. Infact his imaginary visions are based on reality. n these lines the poet takes the Huge cloudy symbols as a threat to his clear love, which is connoted by the phrase, nights starrd face. A clear reference to the poets beloved is witnessed as the poet asserts fair creature of an hour. Here he is focusing on the fact that life is fleeting and the physical beauty and loveliness of his beloved would not last forever, neither would his love. This shows that he is a staunch believer of the inner beauty because it is immortal and it does not need camouflage as opposed to physical beauty. An Ode is addressed directly to Fanny Brawne namely To Fanny . Keats was head over heels in love with Fanny and was also engaged to her. In this ode, the poet is filled with passion for her but he is a victim of his beloveds neglection . Keats asks Fanny if she is really true to him. This question to the beloved substantiates Keats inclination towards the idea of beauty in truth. He also attributes her beauty by using the metaphor of snowy side which signifies the purity of Fannys heart. However, in the very next line he negates himself as he thinks that Fanny is also like other women who are similar to a feather in an ocean that is tossed by wind to any direction. The analogies that the poet draws for Fanny are drawn from nature that incorporates a romantic element which is an inevitable part of his poetry.

Edward Hopper and Tim Eitel Comparison

Edward Hopper and Tim Eitel Comparison Introduction The following pages will analyse and compare American realist Edward Hopper (1882-1967) and German contemporary realist Tim Eitel (b. 1971). The works selected are Office in a Small City, painted by Hopper in 1953 with oils on canvas, and Ohne Titel (Ausblick)/ Without Title (View) by Tim Eitel in 2002 with acrylic paints on canvas. Both artists portray loneliness, and share a common theme of isolation. This was conveyed in my fifth studio work, which is a semi-realist painting of a childhood photograph of me after my family and I moved to the United States from Germany. The event influenced my identity to a large extent, and I wanted to convey the isolation I felt. Therefore, I used similar techniques as Hopper and Eitel, mainly in terms of composition, tone, and shading. Hopper Analysis of formal qualities Stated to be one of the most prominent American artists, Hopper depicted realist urban and rural scenes of post-war American life, and rendered his personal vision of it. Born in 1882 in New York, Hopper studied illustration at university, though shifted to fine arts and was drawn to oil painting. He was heavily influenced by Edgar Degas and Èduard Manet, particularly their use of compositional devices and their depictions of modern urban life, which is apparent in his works. The height of Hoppers fame was achieved through his oil painting Nighthawks (1942) which renders weariness, concern, and tension of customers and a waiter in an urban, anonymous diner in the depths of the night. Like many of Hoppers works, it is believed to echo wartime anxiety and uncertainty through the sense of isolation produced through Hoppers use of composition. This theme of isolation is apparent in Hoppers later works as well, such as Office in a Small City (1952, oil on canvas, 71.1 cm * 101.6 cm). Arranged in a minimalist composition, the work depicts a man looking out at urban architecture and cityscapes. He seems isolated both physically and emotionally. Through the two large and open windows which almost seem to have no glass, the viewer can see in and out of the office. The figure is staring out of the window, and does not seem to be actively working, and instead perhaps waiting for something or daydreaming. He is the only figure in the piece and is detached from unseen possible co-workers. This triggers the sense of physical isolation. In the cold environment of a corner office which contrasts open windows and a blue sky, the man seems trapped, which furthers his physical isolation. Furthermore, he is framed by the office windows, and his head is profiled towards the windows and the wall of buildings beyond, which suggests containment within his environment. The figure is staring detachedly outside towards the nearby buildings and brilliant blue sky, perhaps with something akin to yearning of breaking free of the physical boundaries set which trigger his isolation. There is no indication of any particular profession, and the viewer cannot see any details of his face. The office features bland, mass-produced office furniture and the white walls indicate a similarly bland building. The anonymity, facelessness, and sombre solitude of the figure could be representative of Hoppers criticism towards post-war American business culture, as the man seems to be trapped by the boundaries set by his workplace. Therefore, Hopper could be criticising the surge in post-war American capitalism and perhaps the isolating effect this had on ordinary workers such as the figure portrayed. Furthermore, there is a strong contrast between the stark, utilitarian appearance of office building and the decorative, false front of the building opposite. This could indicate Hoppers ambivalence towards modern urban life which is demonstrated in his other works which also portray modern and urban American society. Annotations The subject matter of the piece is the common features of post-war American life and of its inhabitants, which was commonly portrayed by Hopper. In terms of visual properties, Hopper uses light, shadows, and cold colours to increase sense of loneliness, as well as an ambience of a mass produced and industrialised environment. The building itself is of bland design with large windows, which seem to trap the figure and is also an almost surrealist element, seeing as it is possible that the room has no windows at all, as there is so visible indication of glass. The stark, pronounced and parallel composition furthers the clean lines of the work. A sense of unity is produced through the solid grey colour of the wall, and the strong shade of blue of the sky. The overall technique and style of the piece is simplified realism, demonstrated through the clear and pronounced shadows and strong tones that have little variation. Quotes In general it can be said that a nations art is greatest when it reflects the character of its people. Hopper (via edwardhopper.net) Interpretation of function and purpose Hopper himself states that his aim was to try and give the sense of an isolated and lonely office interior rather high in the air, with the office furniture which has a very definite meaning to me. (metmuseum.org) He did not further state what definite meaning this was, yet as the office furniture is bland, plain, and mass-produced, one can assume that Hopper wished to further the idea of an isolated, melancholic and lonely worker confined both literally and physically by his environment, be it his work specifically or the larger society of post-war America. Produced in 1953, the society Hopper lived in during the time the piece was made experienced great change. The post-war economic boom caused the United States to become increasingly materialistic and capitalist, which triggered a large expansion of the middle-class and people who worked in large organisation, such as offices as portrayed in the piece. This shift of working in a more familiar, smaller environment to working in a l arge business as a mere employee, similarly to a cog in a machine. Furthermore, previously small industrial cities grew massively during this time. Therefore, one would have often felt isolated, which could be a possible reason why Hopper chose to portray the worker as physically and mentally isolated and distant. Hopper used emblematic and anti-narrative symbolism to convey this. Evaluation of cultural significance The work depicts isolation and loneliness of man in a uniquely stark fashion, which could be representative of post-war American consumerist and capitalist society through depicting an anonymous working man trapped in a confining and isolating environment. In another sense, it is important to note the context of the work. Painted in the 1950s, the piece features a reductive style, which is defined by clear lines, reduced formed, streamlined composition, and a clear composition. This style opposed abstract expressionism. Also a post- war movement, abstract expressionism sought to create works fuelled by the subconscious. Painting was seen as an automatic and spontaneous action. Hoppers realist style is in direct opposition to the works of Pollack and Rothko. Unlike prominent artists of the time, Hopper did not paint freely. Due to this, Hopper was often labelled as passà © old fashioned. Post-war, Hoppers success gradually declined, yet, he continued to work. His paintings remained carefully planned with an eye for composition. He continued to interpret American life with very little dramatics. His staged scenes seem ordinary, with isolated, frozen figures in almost awkward poses. Whilst other works at the time were lively and abstract , his pieces remained monotone, yet authentic. Hopper removes any superfluous details, and indeed, this authentic and uneasy realist style captivates and resonates with the viewer, even decades later. Eitel Analysis of formal qualities Born in 1971, German contemporary artist Tim Eitel is one of the most prominent realist painters of the twenty-first century in the European art scene. Eitel studied German language, literature, and philosophy before studying painting at university, resulting in his solo-debut in 2006. Eitels primary medium is oil on canvas, with which he creates minimalistic scenes in a realist style with a sense of abstract composition. Eitel is best known for depictions of a somewhat altered and staged reality, and especially his choice of background and composition are often abstract and, in a sense, surreal. This can be seen in his work Ohne Titel (Ausblick)/ Without Title (View) (acrylic on canvas, 2002, 30 cm * 30c cm). The piece shows a man staring out into a forest, perhaps standing before a window or door of some kind. It is not en-face. Dark blue borders surround a landscape of a forest. The interior has a Mondrian-like aspect through solid blocks of colour; mint and dark blue. It is unsure whether these are windows or doors, or a surrealist element of the piece. The man is alone, and gives a sense of solitude. The composition of the work- with the reflection of the figure on the floor and the man gazing out into the distance- reiterates the reflective nature of the work, as well as the loneliness portrayed. The thick, dark blue borders around the man create emphasis on the figure and isolate him physically. Mentally, the figure seems isolated in that we cannot see his face, and he is simply staring out into the distance. He is not interacting with the viewer, which creates a cold detachment. The dark borders seem to trap and constrain the figure, giving the work a somewhat surreal and ominous aura. The man, however, does not seem to acknowledge the borders, and instead stares longingly outside towards the forest, perhaps in an effort to escape this isolation. The environment is cold, an effect created through the cold colours used of white, light green, dark green and dark blue, which furthers the sense of isolation and creates unity through tone. It also highlights omnipresent solitude, and creates an ambiguous environment. The figure could be anywhere; inside or outside. Eitels technique of realism is very minimal and taken-aback. It seems to be boiled-down to clean lines and shading. He chooses to paint some features in greater detail, such as the mans head, in which he has striking variations of tone to create a lifelike quality. In his technique, he creates a contrast between the soft, light and varied tones of mint green of the forest and the harsh, manufactured, artificial dark blue border with no variation in tone. In the work, the man is in the focal point, and is accentuated through the contrast of light and shadows, as well as composition. He is placed in the centre of the square work, and surrounded by the dark blue borders. This theatrical and staged composition, with elements of surrealism and the unreal, are typical to Eitel. Through his realistic technique, the contrast between the real and staged is particularly effective. He seems to question how much of our true reality is staged through his inconspicuous depictions of ordinary and everyday scenes, which could have been imagined or real. Annotations The subject matter portrayed is a single man staring out into a forest. Eitel uses minimalist and cold tones to further a sense of isolation. The stark and thick borders of solid colours physically isolate the figure. Quotes I do not want to tell stories. Eitel (via youtube.com) It is painting and transposes our world into another world. In this way, painting is more like theatre. It is abstract. (à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦) Just imagine a stage all in black, no light and just one spotlight on the protagonist. It is a lot like that. It creates this artificiality. Eitel (via freudevonfreunden.com/workplaces/tim-eitel) Its a weird kind of ambiguity Im looking for. It has this sense of space and depth, but its also in a way abstract, like this big void. Eitel (via artnews.com/2006/11/01/optical-delusions) Interpretation of function and purpose Eitel has explained that he does not want to tell stories. There is little narrative element to the piece, yet it is powerful nonetheless. The solitude and isolation portrayed is chilling, which is furthered through the figures detachment and lack of interaction with the viewer. Whilst there is no direct criticism to a larger idea or a clear narrative, the work depicts the solitude, loneliness, and isolation of man. Evaluation of cultural significance Whilst Eitel is a famous, up-and-coming contemporary painter- particularly in Europe- the work Ohne Titel (Ausblick)/ Without Title (View) is not his most famous work, yet it accurately portrays Eitels signature features. Realism traditionally portrays scenes truthfully and without artificiality, yet Eitels pieces have an ominous aura of mystery. They question the viewers idea of what is real and what is not through combining stylised and abstract environments and compositions with realist figures. A contrast between reality and staged theatrics can be seen in most of Eitels work. In another sense, Eitels work contrasts other German contemporary art pieces. As a realist, Eitel stands in opposition with surrealist realists such as Neo Rauch or the abstract works of Arno Rink. Specifically, Eitel distances himself from the prominent Neue Leipziger Schule, established in the 1970s. Students of the school were predominantly working with figurative and abstract elements. Eitel, however, is distinctly realist, and his paintings are more reminiscent of photographs in their clean composition, tones, and composition. Hence, Eitels pieces differ greatly from those of other key contemporary German painters. Hopper Eitel Making comparisons and connections The two works share most similarities in terms of formal qualities. The artists are both realists, yet the pieces have a surreal and unreal element. Both works have a minimalist composition, and depict a single, anonymous man who does not interact with the viewer and is faceless. The men are similar in appearance; both bald and middle aged. They are also both in isolation, an effect achieved through using cold colours and a constricting composition of borders. The key similarity of the pieces is the common theme of isolation In another sense, both works are connected in that they feature different contrasts. Eitel contrasts the light tones of the forest with the harsh borders, whereas Hopper contrasts the modern and bland architecture of the office building with the decorative faà §ade of the older buildings and the bright blue sky. Hence, both works could be said to contrast man with nature, or man-made buildings with nature, setting up the dichotomy of contextually modern inventions with nature. Furthermore, both pieces depict a mans loneliness, yet Hopper comments on post-war American society, whereas Eitel does not critique a larger idea. Hoppers piece has great contextual importance as it explores the loneliness of post-war American society and of an ordinary, working man. Therefore, one could say that Hoppers work has a greater cultural significance, and it is also far more famous. However, the striking mysterious solitude portrayed in Eitels work could be seen by some to have a similar critique on todays society; questioning the isolation of man in the twenty-first century, perhaps through modern technology which is often described to isolate. Critically, both artists stage situations and events. Their compositions are both rather similar, and feature repetitive elements in terms of perspectives and lines. Both Hopper and Eitel show figures in almost awkward poses in eerie compositions, free of any superfluous detail. In a way, both works are reminiscent of observing specimens in a jar, particularly the isolated, lonely man, thus making the two pieces powerful and resonating with the viewer. Making connections to own art making practice The outcomes of the comparative study were: My own studio work is connected to Eitel in terms of technique, method, and his concept. In my work, I wanted to convey isolation, as I painted a childhood photograph of me, taken a few days after my family and I moved to the United States from Germany. Similarly to Eitel, I examined the relationship between the figure and surrounding space, and created a cold and empty atmosphere and environment, symbolising the loneliness and isolation I felt. The ambivalence and artificiality of the space reiterates the personal emotions I felt at the time, which had a strong influence on my personal identity. Eitels technique influenced me in that I, too, used borders to reiterate the physical and mental constrictions and isolation I felt. The borders added depth to the work in terms of perspective. Through replicating Eitels minimalist style- almost like a field painting- and heavily reducing the colours, I further the isolation and loneliness and due to the col environment, the disunion between my childhood self and the empty space is deepened. Lastly, similarly to Eitel, the figure is staring into the distance and surrounded by a desolate environment, seemingly staring into infinity. This creates an uneasy feeling with the viewer, and thus echoes the emotions I felt at the time. Similarly, Hopper influenced my studio work in that Hoppers imagery, too, is very restrained, and shows disconnected and isolated figures. Through Hoppers use of light and composition, an almost awkward tension is created, which I replicated through the solitary figure in my work looking to the right, with a stiff posture and serious expression. The dramatic lighting highlights the isolation I experienced, and especially reflects the emotions I felt. Thus, both Hopper and Eitel work hand in hand to reiterate the message of my piece. Sources: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/hopper-156346356/?page=1 http://www.holzwarth-publications.de/media/Eitel_Terrain.pdf http://www.edwardhopper.net/edward-hopper-quotes.jsp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWWi77nEMiA (?) Tim Eitel Optical Delusions

Analysis of Product Packaging Design

Analysis of Product Packaging Design ABSTRACT 1 Introduction Product design and specifically product shape and looks have long been identified as factors that may contribute to product value and new product success. Design of products evokes both cognitive and affective responses in the mind of the observers and this can be used to tailor a more attractive product proposition. While a lot of excellent research has been conducted on the positive effect that industrial design can have on the perceptions of customers about the product functionality, embedding issues like utility, safety and comfort, the importance of the perceived value by a customer on judgements about product elegance and social significance have not been extensively studied until recently. reference In this thesis I am trying to test whether Yes please soup pot design not only communicates to the potential customer a series of qualitative attributes about its content, i.e. quality and healthiness, but also triggers positive emotional responses on the perceived beauty and difference with similar products and that can be leveraged by the company to command a price premium 2  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCT DESIGN New product development processes are the subset of standardized procedures that companies use to manage the new product project phases that lead to the launch of new products in the market. The objective of these procedures is to implement a systematized approach to ensure the potential of new projects based on their financial and development feasibility while maximizing the value of new products as perceived by its target customers. 2.1  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  What is industrial design Industrial design is the set of activities within new product development processes that deal with optimizing the functionality and appearance of a product to maximize its value for both consumer and manufacturer (1). The ultimate objective of a product design is thus to align the set of attributes embedded within the product with the target customer preferences and to implement them in a way that they are actually perceived and valued by them. In order to achieve a successful design and implementation, companies engage in direct market research to elicit the target customer segment implicit and explicit needs (the voice of the customer) and align those with product attributes, using techniques such as Quality Function Deployment (QFD) which systematically links the needs the product must satisfy with technical specifications while also prioritizing them based on the level of importance to customers. At the same time, the identification of the customer segment preferences and the mapping of those within a perceptual map, comparing how well different products in the market fulfill the identified needs, allow for the design of specific product propositions that no other product does and thus achieving a unique positioning and successful product differentiation. The dimension of product design has been recognized by several authors (Cooper, Trueman) as being critical to the ultimate success of the launch of new products. The focus of design development is centered around the efficient implementation of the product features, ergonomics and quality form to maximize its utility to users, while at the same time embedding it with a pleasant appearance that is able to communicate positive attributes that contribute to the ultimate value proposition. (3) (4) Trueman: Design has the facility to improve product reliability and quality standards thereby raising the perceived value of goods and services in the eyes of the customer, allowing companies to increase profit margins As Trueman estates (6), A value proposition must successfully integrate a product within its own environment by combining and merging coherently the different attributes, aesthetics, price and quality so that they are aligned similarly and reinforce each other. Although mistaken by artists that only worry about the visual appearece of a product, or styling, successful industrial designers are able dig into such fields as engineering, Materials science, manufacturing, and marketing to embed new products with a set of attributes directly influencing new product success in the market.(2) (3) (4) (5) (6). Ultimately, the design of an object is the specific configuration of elements, materials and components that give its particular attributes of function, shape etc. and determine how it is to be made and used. (13) By embedding the design dimension into the processes, companies ensure that the final value proposition is increased as it contributes to the perceived value by the customer. A successful design increase the perceived quality of a product, ensures that is aligned with market and regulatory standards and thus increase the odds to satisfy customer expectations. A consistent Design strategy in new product development processes also contributes to build a product and company image and helps to pull together the dimensions of company identity with branding and promotion (Trueman). Also, by taking the design dimensions early on the NPD projects, companies can reduce the final time to market and product costs by simplifying the manufacturing processes and reduce the final costs of fabrication. 2.2  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The contribution of Industrial design in the final product value proposition There are many design attributes that can be embedded into new products, roughly separated within ergonomics and aesthetics, being the former more related to the experience of using the product, while the latter is focused into the experience of seeing the product. Aestethics, embedding all product parameters that determine the way the product look, are a an essential element of the purchasing process since customers base their preference on products by the subjective perceptions elicited by the product on the potential benefits it can provide.(7) In that line, the Lens model first introduced by Brunswick (?), states that the potential customer makes a mental bundle of the information it receives about the product and from there triggers a set of perceptions that will ultimately lead to a set of preferences and choices. The ways a specific design can lead to a positive perception and thus to a choice of preference vary and are entangled with other sources of information the customer receives and which align the propostion to the customer already decided preferences. The perceptions that a product can evoke are immediately related to past information received and allow the person for example to relate it to a certain corporate and brand identity, a process that many companies have followed by implementing a sustained design strategy on their products. Brand identity allows to ultimately link the products observed to perceptions on company values and overall level of attributes of the products and has been used as means of effective product differentiation. (9) (10). In different industries, companies tend to emphasize different attributes in their communication to be aligned with their specific company positioning and customers most importance preferences, like tastiness and safety in the food industry and reliability and environment friendliness in the car industry. The physical form of a product has been researched to have an important impact in the way customers judge it and has ultimately a strong correlation effect with the final product success in the market (). As Bloch (10) states the physical form or design of a product is an unquestioned determinant of its marketplace success. A good design attracts consumers to a product, communicates to them, and adds value to the product by increasing the quality of the usage experiences associated with it. 2.3  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Which financial benefits can it provide Companies with an effective industrial design strategy achieve better perfoming products in the market in terms of several financial indicators as return on assets, return on sales and higher profitability, which can be linked to both the design differentiation factor as stated previously by Porter in the famous book Competitve strategy (1980) and to reduced costs due to more efficient use of materials and manufacturing processes. (14) Also, the study of Roy (13) in 1993 on 221 small and medium sized UK manufacturers which received a government subsidy to promote the active use of industrial design in the development of new or improved products showed that 60% of all projects and 90% of the implemented ones were commercially successful and profitable with payback periods averaging under 15months, which show that the effective strategic approach to include design in new product development processes can be implemented in firms of different sizes. Bloch in his research also collected previous studies that linked new product financial success factors with the inclusion of design as an inherent part of their NPD processes. He identified in a survey of senior marketing managers that, design was mentioned as the most important determinant of new product performatice by 60% of respondents by only 17% considered Price most important . Also and based on the work of cooper on the analysis of the performance of 203 new products identified that product design was the most important determinant of sales success . Most interestingly for the case of Yes Please foods product, which as will be explained later chose specifically a designer for the pot based on his previous award winning record, Some research has identified that the receipt of design awards is positively associated with profit margins above average and sales growth (Goodrich 1994; Roy 1994). 3.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The purchasing process and the visual effect of a product design 3.1  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  XXXXXXXXXXXXX The ultimate act of purchasing occurs as a result of a complex mental process where the information received is analyzed and weighted as per to measure to which extend the product satisfies the needs of the customer. A general categorization of customer needs has been frequently compared with the Maslow hierarchy of needs which states that once most basic requirements have been satisfied by a product, the emphasis on a customer shifts to satisfy other more intangible needs related to symbolic and aesthetic attributes. As a result of this the purchasing process is triggered by the fulfillment of the requirements for the intended use of the product but also by the satisfaction of more intangible needs like status, elegance or social significance. In order to understand the ultimate behavioral response of a customer triggered by the visual appearance of a product it is critical to assess the cognitive and emotional processes that result from the act of observing the item under evaluation. The cognitive processes take place when a customer uses his visual senses to observe the product and perceives certain information which mentally organizes to make some judgments about its attributes and which are influenced by previous visual references or similar product stereotypes, which suggest familiar usages of the product and ultimately help the observer to interpret the signals received. It has been described a number of different approaches on how to categorize the judgments that a customer does based on the perception of a product observation. Crilly (?) has summarized all previous approaches and identifies a total of three main categories of cognitive responses to product appearance: Aesthetic, Semantic and Symbolic. From those three, the semantic interpretation, the mental inferences that an observer does to judge whether a product is capable of performing the tasks for what is intended for, is the only processes where the tangible attributes of the product are assessed. During this process the practical qualities of a product like function, performance and efficiency are analyzed and mentally compared with other references to judge the utility a product will offer to the observer. In this category I include the information that is gathered by the customer when obtaining information from reading the label and which is directly processed to identify the physical attributes of the product. The emotional responses following this cognitive process are then aligned to assess the instrumental utility of the product which ultimately lead to satisfaction, when fulfilling the expected requirements, and dissatisfaction when the product is not fulfilling them. The two other described cognitive processes are used to identify intangible attributes of the product that may or may not be perceived as valuable for the customer depending on a number of different factors, like current positioning within the Maslow hierarchy of needs, consumers cultural context and personal characteristics. The symbolic association is the cognitive response that attaches to the product some socially determined symbolic meaning. During this process, as series of values are realized to be attached to the product and assumes that others must also associate them with it. As Crilly states This culturally agreed meaning will allow the customer project a desirable image to others, express social status or communicate its personal characteristics through it. Examples of intangible values that can be associated to the product through symbolic meaning are exclusivity as the identification with certain economic status and environmentally consciousness. Finally the aesthetic impression comprises all cognitive responses that are directed towards a perceived judgment of elegance and beautifulness. Even if still there is no unanimous consensus on what comprises beautiful objects, the perception of aesthetic attraction triggers positive emotional thoughts on the customer and contribute to attaching value to the product observed. 3.2  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Aesthetics Dimension As researched by several authors (?) the definition of what makes an item beautiful or aesthetically pleasant is not conclusive. It has been described though that cultural and social forces have an influence in the preferences for specific forms. Specifically, it has been described that a specific culture values and preferences may influence the acceptance of a particular style. Also seems to be proven that cultural norms may overwhelm an individual inner preferences and help shape its perceptions towards the acceptance of a specific design form. (blaich, Bloch) Thus, and although cross cultural differences stay in the way of having an unified view of what can be considered as aesthetically pleasant, the current era of advanced information technology is working towards unifying the concepts that influence the perceptions of the soft values within a product design and thus working towards a more globalized and uniform set of criteria. The cognitive processes described triggered upon the observation of a product lead to a series of emotional responses that will ultimately lead to the final decision on the purchasing process, being the most important the attraction or disgust towards the aesthetics, the satisfaction or dissatisfaction towards the fulfillment by the product of instrumental requirements for its use, the surprise or indifference based on the perceived product novelty and the admiration or indignation towards social significance. 4.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  DESIGN IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY In the food industry, Tauber (8), collected through extensive market studies an exhaustive set of problems related to food products. By doing so, he was trying to identify potential opportunities for new products while also providing with a thorough analysis of the basic needs to be fulfilled by this kind of products. From that list it can be identified a series of attributes that the product under study is fulfilling and thus achieving a specific positioning. Some of them, like low calorie content, convenience of transport and preparation and adequacy of the serving size are efficiently communicated through the information contained in the label. Others like healthy, tasty, and high quality can only be perceived by the customer through the design of the pot and label and by some previous information it might have received. Moreover, as Berkowitz researched, the shapes and images that have a more natural looking are associated with products that are fresher, taste better and have a better texture, and are ultimately more preferred by customers. At the same time, he found that aesthetic appealingness of the product, defined by bloch (10) as the ability to evoke positive beliefs, positive emotions and sympathetic with consumers aesthetic tastes, and by Crilly (11) as the sensation that results from the perception of attractiveness (or unattractiveness) in products was not of any specific interest to food products customers. 5.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Yes Please! Foods Company, products and market The trigger for the writing of this thesis has been evaluation of the influence that the design of the Yes Please! Foods soup product packaging may be having in its market performance. Yes Please Foods is Germany based company that entered the chilled organic convenience food German market in 2007. Although belonging to the generally mature food industry, both the organic and convenience sub segments have been growing at an average rate of 12% in the period 2003-2008 in Germany (15). Yes please foods can be considered to be positioned in the Premium priced range of offers within the segment as its Price its on average 33% more expensive than that of the competitors. The company started its operations in the Berlin area and has been enjoying a high growth rate in volumes sold ever since (the actual numbers can not be disclosed in this paper as they are covered by a confidential disclosure agreement). The company is currently planning to expand its operations throughout Germany and is about to close its first round of external financing. Based on the information provided by the company, it is know that the customer profile of this kind of products is that of mid to high educated people, working full time, with above average income and health conscious. It is inferred from the information provided by the company that the product is intended to fulfill the need of high quality healthy food that can be prepared and ready to serve within a short period time frame. The motto of the company portrays this positioning of healthy convenient to prepare food for customers that do not want to spend time in the kitchen as good food for busy people The design of the pot, as explained by the company owner and general manager, Gemma Michalski, was the central part of their strategy to build a company identity and resulted in one of the biggest expenditures incurred during the initial company launching. The design was commissioned to Willimas Myurray Hamm from London which used the artwork of Berlin based illustrator Martin Haake. As explained by Ms Michalski, they were specifically chosen to perform the design task because of their previous record of award winning product designs that resulted in highly successful products in the market. (16) 6.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Use of conjoint analysis to elicit the importance of attributes in the eyes of the costumers The first part of the field study I am going to conduct has been designed to measure a the potential correlation between price and design in the final willingness to pay expressed by respondents. Also I shall use the results to mesure the relative importance of each, for the whole of respondents and for potential segments I shall identify within the sample of respondents. The technique used, an empirical marketing research using conjoint analysis, was first introduced as an effective marketing tool during 1970s and has been validated as an effective means to identify the most relevant features of product, its key design attributes, and the degree of importance that customers attach to them. (17) The usefulness of the tool is extended by the ability to sort the answers from respondents to some specific criteria which allow eliciting the kind of different features preferred by different segments of consumers within the same market. At the heart of the technique, consumers are asked to rate as per their own preferences a number of different product prototypes that are embedding different features and levels of features. By doing so, the customer is making choices and trade-offs from those multi attribute alternatives based on the overall perceived utility or value of the product under evaluation. The statistical treatment of the data, using a multiple regression model, allows quantifying how much each of the single attributes is affecting the overall value of the entangled set of properties, as it is assumed that consumers have an implicit utility value for every single one of them. The first part of the technique is normally a consumer attitude survey were the general attitudes of the consumer towards the product are collected. One of the main outcomes of this part of the research is to determine which features of the product are relevant for the consumers. The aim of this first part is typically to find out why the products are purchased, which use they make of them and their attitudes toward them. Once the information is collected allows the design teams to elicit which features of the product seem to be more relevant for the customers and allows to potentially determine needs that still unresolved or problems existing with current products in the market. In this thesis I have overcome this phase since this part of the research is aimed at determining which physical features of the product are relevant, whether the focus of this thesis is aimed to the soft values attached to physical appearance. Thus, by assuming that the current most important features of the product for the target customer segment are actually satisfied by all products in the study, I have been able to focus any significance preference in the actual aesthetic value of the product and its potential relationship with the price they would be willing to pay. In order to communicate to respondents that all products evaluated had exactly the same features and were only differing in design and price, the following statement was introducing the questionnaire: The products you are going to see are all soup products. They contain just natural organic ingredients without any conservatives and must be kept in the fridge. The portions are all 500ml Generally, The second part of the conjoint process uses the information gathered to determine the whole set of attributes that define all of the existing products in a market and introduces new ones to test their acceptance by consumers. Also, different levels for each attribute are defined to obtain a meaningful representation of the different ranges within each attribute that are or could be available in the market. In order for the research to be significant, prototypes having different combinations of levels of all attributes have to be created to be ranked in preference by consumers. Typically, and due to the large number of possible permutations of attributes that can be created, a smaller sample is chosen to facilitate the consumer research study. It has been shown that eliminating combinations through an experimental design called orthogonal arrays or through judgment (those that are not possible physically i.e. by cost or conceptually i.e. by design), has no significant effect on the final outcome of the study (18) Since the research to be conducted for this thesis is aimed at identifying any preferred designs for a soup product and potentially monetary value attached to specific product appearances, I have chosen to study two sets of attributes, design comprised by the three levels, picture of natural ingredient, artistic draw and no draw and the attribute price, also with three different levels: â‚ ¬ 1,99, â‚ ¬ 2,49 and â‚ ¬ 2,99. Due to the small number of total possible combinations (32), the empirical survey shall ask respondents to evaluate all possible combinations. The rationale for choosing these type of designs has been based on previous literature on shape and images in food products (Berkowitz) and the need for the actual inclusion of the design of the Yes Please Food product to test its hypothesized perceived value on the design. The third design included no draw has been arbitrarily selected hypothesizing it to be a representative sample of an unaesthetic design. The three price level selected have been chosen on the basis of actual prices of products in the market for the picture of natural ingredient (â‚ ¬2,49) and artistic draw (â‚ ¬2,99) designs, while the third level price has been arbitrarily selected to represent a low price level within that attribute. The third part of the procedure gathers a meaningful sample of the product consumers and asks them to rank the different prototypes (combinations of the different levels of the selected attributes) based on their preferences. The aim of this part is to gather the structure of consumers preferences for different product features. In this part is important to define the question to be asked properly so it collects the opinion on consumers about the perceived value they attach to each specific product proposition. In my research I have chosen the sentence from 1-7 how likely would you be to buy this product at the stated price. One of the benefits of conjoint analysis is that it is able to achieve statistical significance on the results with a relative small sample of respondents. The aim of this research will be to achieve at least 33 respondents in order to be able to make some inferences about the direction of the proportional influence that design has in the final monetary value of the proposed prototype, being that either positive or negative. One of the limitations of my study shall be that the random sample of respondents to the questionnaire shall only be validated as actual consumers of soup products by one of the questions in the demographic profile, do you like soup? that is embedding three possible answers: no, sometimes is ok and love it. It shall be assumed that a positive answer to this question (all possible answers but no) allow to make inferences about their potentiality to be consumers of the product. That limitation is affecting jus this part of the study were the research is trying to elucidate whether design has a relationship with willingness to pay. For the second part where it will be researched the consumers perceptions about intangible attributes of the design, it will be assumed that cultural context and general profile of the respondents is similar to that of the consumers of fresh soups as explained before in the Yes Please Foods product and market chapter of this thesis. A segmentation of the respondents by any kind of useful criteria like demographics, type of usage, attitude towards the products etc will also allow to identify the preferred attributes for each type of customer segment. The final part is the statistical treatment of the results that tries to identify which attributes are preferred by consumers and which are considered to be of more relative importance to them, and thus to the final value of the product proposition. 7.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Experiment 7.1  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Objectives The objectives of the experiments executed were designed to validate and refute previous research about the influence that design have in the purchase decision making process and to elicit specific findings about the design of the soup product of the sponsor company Yes Please! Foods. In the first experiment, the objective is to validate whether a series of qualitative attributes about the product can be inferred from the customer just by looking at the design, specifically the respondents are required to rate each of the three designs as per their perception on how they consider them to be healthy, fresh, of high quality, different and beautiful. One of the objectives of this part of the experiment is to validate the hypothesis that the design of the pot of the Yes Please! Foods soup product has is somehow original that can be clearly differentiated from that of the competitors and that is considered to be an aesthetically pleasant design. Another objective of this part of the research is to validate previous research like that of Berkowitz (9), Bloch (10) and Trueman (6) which asserted that in mature markets, product form is one way to gain consumer notice and achieve a clear product differentiation. By assessing the responses about the attributes quality, freshness and Healthiness, it is pursued to validate the research of Bloch (10) and Nusssbaum (?), which stated that exterior appearance of a product is an important channel to communicate information to consumers, that Product form allows to generate inferences regarding other product attributes. Also this experiment will help to validate the research from Berlkowtiz () which found that natural shapes displayed in the packaging of food products help consumers to make assumptions about the product as being more fresh healthy and of higher quality. Finally I intend to validate the research of Trueman (6) which found that products that are considered to have a good design (which I shall relate to the weight of the responses on the attribute beautiful) are considered to be of superior quality, by checking whether products to be considered beautiful on my research are also considered to be of high quality. The inferences that I will try to make with the results of the second part of the research, a conjoint analysis of 9 different prototypes which result from the combination of three different design styles and three different sets of prices, will be dependent upon the results of the first part. If during the first experiment I am able to proof that some of the three designs are considered to be significantly more beautiful than the others, I shall be able to validate with the results of the second experiment are aligned with the results found by Bloch. Kotler and Nussbaum when they found that given two identical products in terms of features and price, the one with the most beautiful design is preferred by respodents. At the same time I shall try to validate whether a product considered to be more beautiful can command a higher willingness to pay, which is stated in the survey designed as the likeliness to buy the shown product. If that is proven to be the case, I will try to identify the reasons why those customers would be willing to spend more in such product by relating it to their perceptions on the other attributes of the same product, either being the subset of attributes regarding product utility, (higher quality, more natural or more healthy) , the subset of aesthetic attributes (more beautiful, more different) or both. Finally I shall use the results of the second experiment to validate the research of Berkowitz which found that products with natural shapes tend to be considered more natural, and healthy. I shall do this by specifically analyzing the results of one of the chosen designs which portrays a picture of a natural tomato on the label. Also I shall try to refute the findings of the same author which found in previous research that attractive designs where not of any specific interest to consumers in terms of aesthetic appeal. 7.2  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Methodology 7.2.1  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Sample The survey will be send to all recipients of the address domain [emailprotected], for which I expect a random sample of respondents within the employees of ESMT and all recipients of address [emailprotected], for which I expect a random sample of ESMT MBA 2009 students I believe this sample shall be repre Analysis of Product Packaging Design Analysis of Product Packaging Design ABSTRACT 1 Introduction Product design and specifically product shape and looks have long been identified as factors that may contribute to product value and new product success. Design of products evokes both cognitive and affective responses in the mind of the observers and this can be used to tailor a more attractive product proposition. While a lot of excellent research has been conducted on the positive effect that industrial design can have on the perceptions of customers about the product functionality, embedding issues like utility, safety and comfort, the importance of the perceived value by a customer on judgements about product elegance and social significance have not been extensively studied until recently. reference In this thesis I am trying to test whether Yes please soup pot design not only communicates to the potential customer a series of qualitative attributes about its content, i.e. quality and healthiness, but also triggers positive emotional responses on the perceived beauty and difference with similar products and that can be leveraged by the company to command a price premium 2  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCT DESIGN New product development processes are the subset of standardized procedures that companies use to manage the new product project phases that lead to the launch of new products in the market. The objective of these procedures is to implement a systematized approach to ensure the potential of new projects based on their financial and development feasibility while maximizing the value of new products as perceived by its target customers. 2.1  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  What is industrial design Industrial design is the set of activities within new product development processes that deal with optimizing the functionality and appearance of a product to maximize its value for both consumer and manufacturer (1). The ultimate objective of a product design is thus to align the set of attributes embedded within the product with the target customer preferences and to implement them in a way that they are actually perceived and valued by them. In order to achieve a successful design and implementation, companies engage in direct market research to elicit the target customer segment implicit and explicit needs (the voice of the customer) and align those with product attributes, using techniques such as Quality Function Deployment (QFD) which systematically links the needs the product must satisfy with technical specifications while also prioritizing them based on the level of importance to customers. At the same time, the identification of the customer segment preferences and the mapping of those within a perceptual map, comparing how well different products in the market fulfill the identified needs, allow for the design of specific product propositions that no other product does and thus achieving a unique positioning and successful product differentiation. The dimension of product design has been recognized by several authors (Cooper, Trueman) as being critical to the ultimate success of the launch of new products. The focus of design development is centered around the efficient implementation of the product features, ergonomics and quality form to maximize its utility to users, while at the same time embedding it with a pleasant appearance that is able to communicate positive attributes that contribute to the ultimate value proposition. (3) (4) Trueman: Design has the facility to improve product reliability and quality standards thereby raising the perceived value of goods and services in the eyes of the customer, allowing companies to increase profit margins As Trueman estates (6), A value proposition must successfully integrate a product within its own environment by combining and merging coherently the different attributes, aesthetics, price and quality so that they are aligned similarly and reinforce each other. Although mistaken by artists that only worry about the visual appearece of a product, or styling, successful industrial designers are able dig into such fields as engineering, Materials science, manufacturing, and marketing to embed new products with a set of attributes directly influencing new product success in the market.(2) (3) (4) (5) (6). Ultimately, the design of an object is the specific configuration of elements, materials and components that give its particular attributes of function, shape etc. and determine how it is to be made and used. (13) By embedding the design dimension into the processes, companies ensure that the final value proposition is increased as it contributes to the perceived value by the customer. A successful design increase the perceived quality of a product, ensures that is aligned with market and regulatory standards and thus increase the odds to satisfy customer expectations. A consistent Design strategy in new product development processes also contributes to build a product and company image and helps to pull together the dimensions of company identity with branding and promotion (Trueman). Also, by taking the design dimensions early on the NPD projects, companies can reduce the final time to market and product costs by simplifying the manufacturing processes and reduce the final costs of fabrication. 2.2  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The contribution of Industrial design in the final product value proposition There are many design attributes that can be embedded into new products, roughly separated within ergonomics and aesthetics, being the former more related to the experience of using the product, while the latter is focused into the experience of seeing the product. Aestethics, embedding all product parameters that determine the way the product look, are a an essential element of the purchasing process since customers base their preference on products by the subjective perceptions elicited by the product on the potential benefits it can provide.(7) In that line, the Lens model first introduced by Brunswick (?), states that the potential customer makes a mental bundle of the information it receives about the product and from there triggers a set of perceptions that will ultimately lead to a set of preferences and choices. The ways a specific design can lead to a positive perception and thus to a choice of preference vary and are entangled with other sources of information the customer receives and which align the propostion to the customer already decided preferences. The perceptions that a product can evoke are immediately related to past information received and allow the person for example to relate it to a certain corporate and brand identity, a process that many companies have followed by implementing a sustained design strategy on their products. Brand identity allows to ultimately link the products observed to perceptions on company values and overall level of attributes of the products and has been used as means of effective product differentiation. (9) (10). In different industries, companies tend to emphasize different attributes in their communication to be aligned with their specific company positioning and customers most importance preferences, like tastiness and safety in the food industry and reliability and environment friendliness in the car industry. The physical form of a product has been researched to have an important impact in the way customers judge it and has ultimately a strong correlation effect with the final product success in the market (). As Bloch (10) states the physical form or design of a product is an unquestioned determinant of its marketplace success. A good design attracts consumers to a product, communicates to them, and adds value to the product by increasing the quality of the usage experiences associated with it. 2.3  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Which financial benefits can it provide Companies with an effective industrial design strategy achieve better perfoming products in the market in terms of several financial indicators as return on assets, return on sales and higher profitability, which can be linked to both the design differentiation factor as stated previously by Porter in the famous book Competitve strategy (1980) and to reduced costs due to more efficient use of materials and manufacturing processes. (14) Also, the study of Roy (13) in 1993 on 221 small and medium sized UK manufacturers which received a government subsidy to promote the active use of industrial design in the development of new or improved products showed that 60% of all projects and 90% of the implemented ones were commercially successful and profitable with payback periods averaging under 15months, which show that the effective strategic approach to include design in new product development processes can be implemented in firms of different sizes. Bloch in his research also collected previous studies that linked new product financial success factors with the inclusion of design as an inherent part of their NPD processes. He identified in a survey of senior marketing managers that, design was mentioned as the most important determinant of new product performatice by 60% of respondents by only 17% considered Price most important . Also and based on the work of cooper on the analysis of the performance of 203 new products identified that product design was the most important determinant of sales success . Most interestingly for the case of Yes Please foods product, which as will be explained later chose specifically a designer for the pot based on his previous award winning record, Some research has identified that the receipt of design awards is positively associated with profit margins above average and sales growth (Goodrich 1994; Roy 1994). 3.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The purchasing process and the visual effect of a product design 3.1  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  XXXXXXXXXXXXX The ultimate act of purchasing occurs as a result of a complex mental process where the information received is analyzed and weighted as per to measure to which extend the product satisfies the needs of the customer. A general categorization of customer needs has been frequently compared with the Maslow hierarchy of needs which states that once most basic requirements have been satisfied by a product, the emphasis on a customer shifts to satisfy other more intangible needs related to symbolic and aesthetic attributes. As a result of this the purchasing process is triggered by the fulfillment of the requirements for the intended use of the product but also by the satisfaction of more intangible needs like status, elegance or social significance. In order to understand the ultimate behavioral response of a customer triggered by the visual appearance of a product it is critical to assess the cognitive and emotional processes that result from the act of observing the item under evaluation. The cognitive processes take place when a customer uses his visual senses to observe the product and perceives certain information which mentally organizes to make some judgments about its attributes and which are influenced by previous visual references or similar product stereotypes, which suggest familiar usages of the product and ultimately help the observer to interpret the signals received. It has been described a number of different approaches on how to categorize the judgments that a customer does based on the perception of a product observation. Crilly (?) has summarized all previous approaches and identifies a total of three main categories of cognitive responses to product appearance: Aesthetic, Semantic and Symbolic. From those three, the semantic interpretation, the mental inferences that an observer does to judge whether a product is capable of performing the tasks for what is intended for, is the only processes where the tangible attributes of the product are assessed. During this process the practical qualities of a product like function, performance and efficiency are analyzed and mentally compared with other references to judge the utility a product will offer to the observer. In this category I include the information that is gathered by the customer when obtaining information from reading the label and which is directly processed to identify the physical attributes of the product. The emotional responses following this cognitive process are then aligned to assess the instrumental utility of the product which ultimately lead to satisfaction, when fulfilling the expected requirements, and dissatisfaction when the product is not fulfilling them. The two other described cognitive processes are used to identify intangible attributes of the product that may or may not be perceived as valuable for the customer depending on a number of different factors, like current positioning within the Maslow hierarchy of needs, consumers cultural context and personal characteristics. The symbolic association is the cognitive response that attaches to the product some socially determined symbolic meaning. During this process, as series of values are realized to be attached to the product and assumes that others must also associate them with it. As Crilly states This culturally agreed meaning will allow the customer project a desirable image to others, express social status or communicate its personal characteristics through it. Examples of intangible values that can be associated to the product through symbolic meaning are exclusivity as the identification with certain economic status and environmentally consciousness. Finally the aesthetic impression comprises all cognitive responses that are directed towards a perceived judgment of elegance and beautifulness. Even if still there is no unanimous consensus on what comprises beautiful objects, the perception of aesthetic attraction triggers positive emotional thoughts on the customer and contribute to attaching value to the product observed. 3.2  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Aesthetics Dimension As researched by several authors (?) the definition of what makes an item beautiful or aesthetically pleasant is not conclusive. It has been described though that cultural and social forces have an influence in the preferences for specific forms. Specifically, it has been described that a specific culture values and preferences may influence the acceptance of a particular style. Also seems to be proven that cultural norms may overwhelm an individual inner preferences and help shape its perceptions towards the acceptance of a specific design form. (blaich, Bloch) Thus, and although cross cultural differences stay in the way of having an unified view of what can be considered as aesthetically pleasant, the current era of advanced information technology is working towards unifying the concepts that influence the perceptions of the soft values within a product design and thus working towards a more globalized and uniform set of criteria. The cognitive processes described triggered upon the observation of a product lead to a series of emotional responses that will ultimately lead to the final decision on the purchasing process, being the most important the attraction or disgust towards the aesthetics, the satisfaction or dissatisfaction towards the fulfillment by the product of instrumental requirements for its use, the surprise or indifference based on the perceived product novelty and the admiration or indignation towards social significance. 4.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  DESIGN IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY In the food industry, Tauber (8), collected through extensive market studies an exhaustive set of problems related to food products. By doing so, he was trying to identify potential opportunities for new products while also providing with a thorough analysis of the basic needs to be fulfilled by this kind of products. From that list it can be identified a series of attributes that the product under study is fulfilling and thus achieving a specific positioning. Some of them, like low calorie content, convenience of transport and preparation and adequacy of the serving size are efficiently communicated through the information contained in the label. Others like healthy, tasty, and high quality can only be perceived by the customer through the design of the pot and label and by some previous information it might have received. Moreover, as Berkowitz researched, the shapes and images that have a more natural looking are associated with products that are fresher, taste better and have a better texture, and are ultimately more preferred by customers. At the same time, he found that aesthetic appealingness of the product, defined by bloch (10) as the ability to evoke positive beliefs, positive emotions and sympathetic with consumers aesthetic tastes, and by Crilly (11) as the sensation that results from the perception of attractiveness (or unattractiveness) in products was not of any specific interest to food products customers. 5.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Yes Please! Foods Company, products and market The trigger for the writing of this thesis has been evaluation of the influence that the design of the Yes Please! Foods soup product packaging may be having in its market performance. Yes Please Foods is Germany based company that entered the chilled organic convenience food German market in 2007. Although belonging to the generally mature food industry, both the organic and convenience sub segments have been growing at an average rate of 12% in the period 2003-2008 in Germany (15). Yes please foods can be considered to be positioned in the Premium priced range of offers within the segment as its Price its on average 33% more expensive than that of the competitors. The company started its operations in the Berlin area and has been enjoying a high growth rate in volumes sold ever since (the actual numbers can not be disclosed in this paper as they are covered by a confidential disclosure agreement). The company is currently planning to expand its operations throughout Germany and is about to close its first round of external financing. Based on the information provided by the company, it is know that the customer profile of this kind of products is that of mid to high educated people, working full time, with above average income and health conscious. It is inferred from the information provided by the company that the product is intended to fulfill the need of high quality healthy food that can be prepared and ready to serve within a short period time frame. The motto of the company portrays this positioning of healthy convenient to prepare food for customers that do not want to spend time in the kitchen as good food for busy people The design of the pot, as explained by the company owner and general manager, Gemma Michalski, was the central part of their strategy to build a company identity and resulted in one of the biggest expenditures incurred during the initial company launching. The design was commissioned to Willimas Myurray Hamm from London which used the artwork of Berlin based illustrator Martin Haake. As explained by Ms Michalski, they were specifically chosen to perform the design task because of their previous record of award winning product designs that resulted in highly successful products in the market. (16) 6.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Use of conjoint analysis to elicit the importance of attributes in the eyes of the costumers The first part of the field study I am going to conduct has been designed to measure a the potential correlation between price and design in the final willingness to pay expressed by respondents. Also I shall use the results to mesure the relative importance of each, for the whole of respondents and for potential segments I shall identify within the sample of respondents. The technique used, an empirical marketing research using conjoint analysis, was first introduced as an effective marketing tool during 1970s and has been validated as an effective means to identify the most relevant features of product, its key design attributes, and the degree of importance that customers attach to them. (17) The usefulness of the tool is extended by the ability to sort the answers from respondents to some specific criteria which allow eliciting the kind of different features preferred by different segments of consumers within the same market. At the heart of the technique, consumers are asked to rate as per their own preferences a number of different product prototypes that are embedding different features and levels of features. By doing so, the customer is making choices and trade-offs from those multi attribute alternatives based on the overall perceived utility or value of the product under evaluation. The statistical treatment of the data, using a multiple regression model, allows quantifying how much each of the single attributes is affecting the overall value of the entangled set of properties, as it is assumed that consumers have an implicit utility value for every single one of them. The first part of the technique is normally a consumer attitude survey were the general attitudes of the consumer towards the product are collected. One of the main outcomes of this part of the research is to determine which features of the product are relevant for the consumers. The aim of this first part is typically to find out why the products are purchased, which use they make of them and their attitudes toward them. Once the information is collected allows the design teams to elicit which features of the product seem to be more relevant for the customers and allows to potentially determine needs that still unresolved or problems existing with current products in the market. In this thesis I have overcome this phase since this part of the research is aimed at determining which physical features of the product are relevant, whether the focus of this thesis is aimed to the soft values attached to physical appearance. Thus, by assuming that the current most important features of the product for the target customer segment are actually satisfied by all products in the study, I have been able to focus any significance preference in the actual aesthetic value of the product and its potential relationship with the price they would be willing to pay. In order to communicate to respondents that all products evaluated had exactly the same features and were only differing in design and price, the following statement was introducing the questionnaire: The products you are going to see are all soup products. They contain just natural organic ingredients without any conservatives and must be kept in the fridge. The portions are all 500ml Generally, The second part of the conjoint process uses the information gathered to determine the whole set of attributes that define all of the existing products in a market and introduces new ones to test their acceptance by consumers. Also, different levels for each attribute are defined to obtain a meaningful representation of the different ranges within each attribute that are or could be available in the market. In order for the research to be significant, prototypes having different combinations of levels of all attributes have to be created to be ranked in preference by consumers. Typically, and due to the large number of possible permutations of attributes that can be created, a smaller sample is chosen to facilitate the consumer research study. It has been shown that eliminating combinations through an experimental design called orthogonal arrays or through judgment (those that are not possible physically i.e. by cost or conceptually i.e. by design), has no significant effect on the final outcome of the study (18) Since the research to be conducted for this thesis is aimed at identifying any preferred designs for a soup product and potentially monetary value attached to specific product appearances, I have chosen to study two sets of attributes, design comprised by the three levels, picture of natural ingredient, artistic draw and no draw and the attribute price, also with three different levels: â‚ ¬ 1,99, â‚ ¬ 2,49 and â‚ ¬ 2,99. Due to the small number of total possible combinations (32), the empirical survey shall ask respondents to evaluate all possible combinations. The rationale for choosing these type of designs has been based on previous literature on shape and images in food products (Berkowitz) and the need for the actual inclusion of the design of the Yes Please Food product to test its hypothesized perceived value on the design. The third design included no draw has been arbitrarily selected hypothesizing it to be a representative sample of an unaesthetic design. The three price level selected have been chosen on the basis of actual prices of products in the market for the picture of natural ingredient (â‚ ¬2,49) and artistic draw (â‚ ¬2,99) designs, while the third level price has been arbitrarily selected to represent a low price level within that attribute. The third part of the procedure gathers a meaningful sample of the product consumers and asks them to rank the different prototypes (combinations of the different levels of the selected attributes) based on their preferences. The aim of this part is to gather the structure of consumers preferences for different product features. In this part is important to define the question to be asked properly so it collects the opinion on consumers about the perceived value they attach to each specific product proposition. In my research I have chosen the sentence from 1-7 how likely would you be to buy this product at the stated price. One of the benefits of conjoint analysis is that it is able to achieve statistical significance on the results with a relative small sample of respondents. The aim of this research will be to achieve at least 33 respondents in order to be able to make some inferences about the direction of the proportional influence that design has in the final monetary value of the proposed prototype, being that either positive or negative. One of the limitations of my study shall be that the random sample of respondents to the questionnaire shall only be validated as actual consumers of soup products by one of the questions in the demographic profile, do you like soup? that is embedding three possible answers: no, sometimes is ok and love it. It shall be assumed that a positive answer to this question (all possible answers but no) allow to make inferences about their potentiality to be consumers of the product. That limitation is affecting jus this part of the study were the research is trying to elucidate whether design has a relationship with willingness to pay. For the second part where it will be researched the consumers perceptions about intangible attributes of the design, it will be assumed that cultural context and general profile of the respondents is similar to that of the consumers of fresh soups as explained before in the Yes Please Foods product and market chapter of this thesis. A segmentation of the respondents by any kind of useful criteria like demographics, type of usage, attitude towards the products etc will also allow to identify the preferred attributes for each type of customer segment. The final part is the statistical treatment of the results that tries to identify which attributes are preferred by consumers and which are considered to be of more relative importance to them, and thus to the final value of the product proposition. 7.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Experiment 7.1  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Objectives The objectives of the experiments executed were designed to validate and refute previous research about the influence that design have in the purchase decision making process and to elicit specific findings about the design of the soup product of the sponsor company Yes Please! Foods. In the first experiment, the objective is to validate whether a series of qualitative attributes about the product can be inferred from the customer just by looking at the design, specifically the respondents are required to rate each of the three designs as per their perception on how they consider them to be healthy, fresh, of high quality, different and beautiful. One of the objectives of this part of the experiment is to validate the hypothesis that the design of the pot of the Yes Please! Foods soup product has is somehow original that can be clearly differentiated from that of the competitors and that is considered to be an aesthetically pleasant design. Another objective of this part of the research is to validate previous research like that of Berkowitz (9), Bloch (10) and Trueman (6) which asserted that in mature markets, product form is one way to gain consumer notice and achieve a clear product differentiation. By assessing the responses about the attributes quality, freshness and Healthiness, it is pursued to validate the research of Bloch (10) and Nusssbaum (?), which stated that exterior appearance of a product is an important channel to communicate information to consumers, that Product form allows to generate inferences regarding other product attributes. Also this experiment will help to validate the research from Berlkowtiz () which found that natural shapes displayed in the packaging of food products help consumers to make assumptions about the product as being more fresh healthy and of higher quality. Finally I intend to validate the research of Trueman (6) which found that products that are considered to have a good design (which I shall relate to the weight of the responses on the attribute beautiful) are considered to be of superior quality, by checking whether products to be considered beautiful on my research are also considered to be of high quality. The inferences that I will try to make with the results of the second part of the research, a conjoint analysis of 9 different prototypes which result from the combination of three different design styles and three different sets of prices, will be dependent upon the results of the first part. If during the first experiment I am able to proof that some of the three designs are considered to be significantly more beautiful than the others, I shall be able to validate with the results of the second experiment are aligned with the results found by Bloch. Kotler and Nussbaum when they found that given two identical products in terms of features and price, the one with the most beautiful design is preferred by respodents. At the same time I shall try to validate whether a product considered to be more beautiful can command a higher willingness to pay, which is stated in the survey designed as the likeliness to buy the shown product. If that is proven to be the case, I will try to identify the reasons why those customers would be willing to spend more in such product by relating it to their perceptions on the other attributes of the same product, either being the subset of attributes regarding product utility, (higher quality, more natural or more healthy) , the subset of aesthetic attributes (more beautiful, more different) or both. Finally I shall use the results of the second experiment to validate the research of Berkowitz which found that products with natural shapes tend to be considered more natural, and healthy. I shall do this by specifically analyzing the results of one of the chosen designs which portrays a picture of a natural tomato on the label. Also I shall try to refute the findings of the same author which found in previous research that attractive designs where not of any specific interest to consumers in terms of aesthetic appeal. 7.2  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Methodology 7.2.1  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Sample The survey will be send to all recipients of the address domain [emailprotected], for which I expect a random sample of respondents within the employees of ESMT and all recipients of address [emailprotected], for which I expect a random sample of ESMT MBA 2009 students I believe this sample shall be repre