PurposePhysical stores are increasingly dependent on impulse visits and the impulse purchases of passers-by. Interactive advertising screens in store windows could help retailers increase impulse-visit urges and impulse-buying urges. However, the effects of interactive screens in physical surroundings have not been studied before. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the effect of interactive screens on impulse urges and gain insight into the underlying mechanism that explains the possible effect.Design/methodology/approachAn interactive screen was placed in a store window. Using three field experiments, we studied the effect of interactivity-level (high vs low) on the impulse-visit and impulse-buying urges of passers-by, and the mediating role of self-agency in these effects.FindingsHighly interactive (compared to less interactive) advertising screens in store windows positively affect impulse-visit and impulse-buying urges through self-agency. Retailers can therefore use interactive advertising screens to increase the number of impulse purchases if feelings of self-agency are activated.Originality/valueThis is the first study to examine the extent to which interactive screens in a store window enhance the impulse-visit and impulse-buying urges of passers-by and the mediating factor of these effects. By conducting three field experiments, we achieved a high external validity and managed to share very reliable results owing to the replication of the findings.
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Interactivity has become a crucial aspect of marketing. It allows companies to connect with their customers, often resulting in positive outcomes. Based on a literature review, this chapter discusses ten of the most pioneering tools used in interactive marketing. First it will be explained how each tool relates to the three dimensions of interactivity (active control, two-way communication, synchronicity), and insights in what dimensions are the driving forces behind each interactive marketing tool are provided. Second, results showing that research on the ten interactive marketing tools generally finds positive effects on diverse outcome variables, such as enjoyment, urges, and behavioral intentions, are discussed together with conflicting outcomes (e.g., the effect on cognition) and the potential negative effects of the tools (e.g., privacy concerns and intrusiveness). It concludes with the recommendation for marketers and researchers to collaborate and actively try out (innovative) interactive marketing tools while closely monitoring their effects.
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Over the past decade, journalists have created in-depth interactive narratives to provide an alternative to the relentless 24-hour news cycle. Combining different media forms, such as text, audio, video, and data visualisation with the interactive possibilities of digital media, these narratives involve users in the narrative in new ways. In journalism studies, the convergence of different media forms in this manner has gained significant attention. However, interactivity as part of this form has been left underappreciated. In this study, we scrutinise how navigational structure, expressed as navigational cues, shapes user agency in their individual explorations of the narrative. By approaching interactive narratives as story spaces with unique interactive architectures, in this article, we reconstruct the architecture of five Dutch interactive narratives using the walkthrough method. We find that the extensiveness of the interactive architectures can be described on a continuum between closed and open navigational structures that predetermine and thus shape users’ trajectories in diverse ways.
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Fashion has become inextricably linked with digital culture. Digital media have opened up new spaces of fashion consumption that are unprecedented in their levels of ubiquity, immersion, fluidity, and interactivity. The virtual realm continuously needs us to design and communicate our identity online. Unfortunately, the current landscape of digitised fashion practices seems to lack the type of self-governing attitude and urgency that is needed to move beyond commercially mandated platforms and systems that effectively diminish our digital agency. As transformative power seems to be the promise of the virtual, there is an inherent need to critically assess how digital representation of fashion manifests online, especially when these representations become key mediators within our collective and individual public construction of self. A number of collectives and practitioners that actively shape a counter movement, organized bottom up rather than through capital, are questioning this interdependence, applying inverted thinking and experimenting with alternative modes of engagement. Starting from the research question ‘How can critical fashion practitioners introduce and amplify digital agency within fashion’s virtual landscape through new strategies of aesthetic engagement?’, this project investigates the implications of fashion’s increasing shift towards the virtual realm and the ramifications created for digital agency. It centers on how identity is understood in the digital era, whether subjects have full agency while expected to construct multiple selves, and how online environments that enact as playgrounds for our identities might attribute to a distorted sense of self. By using the field of critical fashion as its site, and the rapidly expanding frontier of digital counter practices as a lens, the aim of this project is to contribute to larger changes within an increasingly global and digital society, such as new modes of consumerism, capital and cultural value.
Within TIND, Christian Roth studies the training of interactive narrative designers with the goal of developing teaching methods and learning tools for artists and designers to enable the creation of more effective artefacts. Interactive Narrative Design (IND) is a complex and challenging interdisciplinary field introducing new affordances in technique and user-experience. This requires practice-based research for further development of the educational format, demonstrating its potential while identifying and overcoming common learners’ challenges. This project aims to develop a framework for the design and evaluation of meaningful interactive narrative experiences that effectively stimulate a variety of cognitive and emotional responses such as reflection, insight, understanding, and potential behavior change. It provides tools, methods and activities to enable aspiring or practicing narrative designers through an interdisciplinary approach, including game design, immersive theatre, behavioral and cognitive psychology, and the learning sciences. HKU education means to prepare students for success in the creative industries and IND plays an important role for current and future jobs in education, arts and entertainment. IND has the potential to create an emotional impact and spark transformative change by offering agency, defined as the ability to influence narrative progression and outcomes in a meaningful way. This enables interactors to feel the weight of their own choices and their consequences, to explore different perspectives, and to more thoroughly understand complex multi-stakeholder issues, which could have significant impact on the success of emerging artistic, and learning applications. The research project is directly embedded in the curriculum of the HKU school Games & Interaction with annual educational offerings such as the Minor Interactive Narrative Design (MIND) and HKU wide broad seminars. Course evaluation and literature research will be used to create new and adjusted training for different HKU schools and the industry. Outcomes will be shared via an interactive website and events.
The Hereon team has expressed interest in the use of the PO platform for the virtualization of the (hydro)dynamic behavior of offshore wind farms, in particular regarding turbidity around wind turbines. BUas has developed the Procedural Ocean (PO) platform. The platform uses procedural content generation (AI) for data-driven 3D virtualization of complex marine and maritime environments, with elements such as geo-environment (bathymery, etc.), geo-physics (weather conditions, waves), wind farms, aquaculture, shipping, ecology, and more. The virtual and immersive environment in the game engine Unreal supports advanced (game-like) user interaction for policy-oriented learning (marine spatial planning), ocean management, and decision making. We therefore propose a joint pilot Research and Development (R&D) project to explore, demonstrate and validate how a gridded dataset provided by Hereon can show the dynmics around wind farm monopiles. Furthermore, we can explore interactivity with the engineering and design of the turbine and the multiplication of the turbine design to compose a wind farm. Client: Hereon (The Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon is a non-profit making research institute )
