In most shopping areas, there are place management partnerships (PMPs) that aim to increase the competitiveness of the area. Collective digital marketing activities, such as the adoption and update of collective websites and social media pages, provide opportunities in this regard. Currently, the extent to which digital marketing activities are being employed varies widely among PMPs. However, studies investigating the factors that influence the uptake of digital marketing activities are lacking. This study applies a resource-based view to fill this gap, using data from an online survey about collective digital marketing activities among 164 official representatives of PMPs in urban shopping areas in the Netherlands. Regression analyses were employed to examine the extent to which the resources of PMPs influence the adoption and update frequency of the two most often used digital marketing channels: websites and social media pages. The results revealed that while the adoption of collective digital marketing channels is strongly influenced by the physical resources that characterize the shopping area itself, the update frequency of these channels is influenced more by the organizational resources of PMPs. In addition, the strategic choice of PMPs to deploy human and financial resources for the benefit of collective digital marketing activities leads to increased use of these activities. This effect is reinforced by the fact that digital marketing skills gained through experience contribute to a higher update frequency of the adopted channels. As such, this study provides empirical evidence on the influence of PMPs shared resources upon their digital marketing activities.
Situated analytics shopping assistent (SASA) systemen voor klanten maken nieuwe diensteninnovaties in winkels mogelijk. Met behulp van computer vision (CV) en augmented reality (AR) kunnen deze smartphonetoepassingen achtereenvolgens winkelproducten identificeren, aangeven of die identificatie geslaagd was (bijvoorbeeld met kleuren), informatie over producteigenschappen visualiseren en productadvies geven. Door de transparantie over producteigenschappen te vergroten kunnen ze bewuster aankoopgedrag stimuleren. Dit is bijvoorbeeld relevant voor supermarkten vanwege hun belangrijke rol in de maatschappelijke duurzaamheids- en gezondheidstransities. Hoewel er behoefte aan is, blijken SASA-systemen vooral qua productidentificatie-functionaliteit nog onvoldoende inzetbaar in de supermarktpraktijk. Dit biedt kansen voor mkb-bedrijven in de hightechsector, waaronder 360Fabriek. 360Fabriek wordt, net zoals veel andere bedrijven in de immersieve technologie-branche, bij de ontwikkeling van SASA-systemen voor supermarkten echter geconfronteerd met de beperkingen van beschikbare CV-oplossingen. Deze kunnen slechts een beperkt aantal producten op een supermarkt-rek real-time identificeren en hebben moeite met productidentificatie onder realistische supermarktomstandigheden. Tegelijkertijd beschikt 360Fabriek niet over de kennis om de vereiste CV-oplossingen zelf te ontwikkelen. Daarnaast heeft men behoefte aan aanvullende kennis over de inzet van AR in SASA-systemen. 360Fabriek zou daarom de volgende praktijkvraag graag beantwoord zien: Hoe kunnen CV en AR-technieken in SASA-systemen ingezet worden voor een effectieve en positief ervaren productidentificatie en visualisatie van de identificatieresultaten, onder realistische supermarktomstandigheden? Om deze vraag te beantwoorden, zullen de HvA en 360Fabriek dit project samen met Jumbo Bas Bobeldijk uitvoeren. Hiertoe zal een initieel SASA-prototype ontwikkeld worden, dat supermarktproducten identificeert, visualiseert of die identificatie geslaagd was, het merk en type van geïdentificeerde producten toont, en supermarktklanten instructies geeft voor het gebruik van de smartphonetoepassing. Dit prototype zal in een Jumbo-supermarktvestiging worden getest. Het project zal naast het SASA-prototype resulteren in doorontwikkelde technologische CV-oplossingen en nieuwe technologische CV en AR-kennis. Deze zullen breed gedeeld worden met de beroepspraktijk in een eindpresentatie en in twee vakpublicaties.
-Chatbots are being used at an increasing rate, for instance, for simple Q&A conversations, flight reservations, online shopping and news aggregation. However, users expect to be served as effective and reliable as they were with human-based systems and are unforgiving once the system fails to understand them, engage them or show them human empathy. This problem is more prominent when the technology is used in domains such as health care, where empathy and the ability to give emotional support are most essential during interaction with the person. Empathy, however, is a unique human skill, and conversational agents such as chatbots cannot yet express empathy in nuanced ways to account for its complex nature and quality. This project focuses on designing emotionally supportive conversational agents within the mental health domain. We take a user-centered co-creation approach to focus on the mental health problems of sexual assault victims. This group is chosen specifically, because of the high rate of the sexual assault incidents and its lifetime destructive effects on the victim and the fact that although early intervention and treatment is necessary to prevent future mental health problems, these incidents largely go unreported due to the stigma attached to sexual assault. On the other hand, research shows that people feel more comfortable talking to chatbots about intimate topics since they feel no fear of judgment. We think an emotionally supportive and empathic chatbot specifically designed to encourage self-disclosure among sexual assault victims could help those who remain silent in fear of negative evaluation and empower them to process their experience better and take the necessary steps towards treatment early on.
Supermarkets are essential urban household amenities, providing daily products, and for their social role in communities. Contrary to many other countries, including nearby ones, the Netherlands have a balanced distribution of supermarkets across villages and urban neighbourhoods. However, spatial supermarket patterns, are subject to influential developments. First, due to economies of scale, there is a tendency for supermarkets to increase their catchment areas and to disappear from peripheral villages. Second, supermarkets are now mainly located in residential areas, although the urban periphery appears to be attractive for the retail sector, perhaps including the rise of hypermarkets. Third, today, online grocery shopping is still lagging far behind on other online shopping products, but a breaks through will dilute population support for in-store supermarkets and can lead to dramatic ‘game changer’ shifts with major spatial and social effects. These three important trends will reinforce each other. Consequences are of natural community meeting places at the expense of social cohesion; reduced accessibility for daily products, leading to more travel, often by car; increasing delivery flows; real estate vacancies, and increasing suburban demand increase for retail and logistics. Expected changes in supermarket patterns require understanding, but academic literature on OGS is still scarce, and does hardly address household behaviour in changing spatial constellations. We develop likely spatial supermarket patterns, and model the consequences for travel demand, social cohesion and real estate demand, as well as the distribution between online and in-store grocery shopping, by developing a stated preference experiment, among Dutch households.
