Darius-Aurel Frank
Assistant Professor, CEO, PhD, MSc
EXPLORING LIFE WITH TECHNOLOGY IN THE FUTURE
Recent publications
How the Presence of Employee Avatars Affects Consumers' Shopping Behavior in Virtual Reality
July 16, 2024, Aarhus University, AarhusBrands are increasingly leveraging the metaverse to promote their products and services, yet the social influence of avatars in this realm remains largely unexplored. Our latest research reveals that both human and robotic employee avatars can significantly affect purchasing decisions in virtual shopping environments, particularly for embarrassing products.
Highlights:
Both human and robotic employee avatars reduce consumer purchase behavior, including time and money spent, in embarrassing metaverse contexts
Consumers recall the brand of embarrassing products less but are more likely to remember the sale in the presence of avatar employees
The negative impact of avatars is significant in embarrassing settings but not in non-embarrassing ones
Marketers should avoid using avatars to promote embarrassing products in the metaverse
Ready to optimize your virtual avatar sales promotions?
Unveiling Metaverse Memory Processes
June 21, 2024 (Updated: July 16, 2024), Aarhus University, AarhusApple's Vision Pro impresses not only with its build quality but also fidelity. This made us wonder how high (vs. low) visual fidelity may affect consumer responses to virtual brand and product experiences. Below, we present results of our most recent study comparing high (vs. low) fidelity on consumers' memory performance in a VR shopping setting.
Highlights:
Visual fidelity of VR headsets and task affect memory performance and spending
Higher visual fidelity increases explicit memory performance
Lower visual fidelity increases implicit memory performance for browsing tasks
In-store spending decreases with higher explicit memory performance
Ready to optimize your customers' virtual user experience?
Recent events
Thought Leadership Conference: Innovation for a Digital and Aging Society
May 13-14, 2024 at UC3M, MadridThis research initiative, spearheaded by Professor Tor W. Andreassen (NHH), within the Innovation Index Coalition (IIC), brought together IIC partners and distinguished service researchers, including Professors Jochen Wirtz (National University of Singapore), John Bateson (Bayes Business School), Cristina Mele (University of Naples Federico II), Werner Kunz (University of Massachusetts), and Lars Witell (Linköping University), among others. The initiative aims to address grand challenges at the intersection of technology and demographics: the shift toward a digital and aging society, and the remarkable opportunity to leverage innovation to enhance the well-being of millions globally.
Is This The Year of The Metaverse? Outlining the Landscape of VR, AR and XR technologies
February 1, 2024 13.30 – 17.00 at The Kitchen, Aarhus UniversityOrganised as a collaboration between the Computer Science, Digital Design, and Management departments of Aarhus University, this event was an “eye opening experience” to students, researchers, interaction designers, practitioners, and industry professionals in and around Aarhus. The event discussed current and future applications of these technologies and their relevance for businesses. The event featured a panel discussion, live demo sessions, and a series of engaging 1-Minute Madness pitch session, in which they had the brief one-minute opportunity to present their cutting-edge ideas, prototypes and applications to the audience.
NIMCon 2023 – The NIM Market Decisions Research Meeting
September 17-19, 2023 at NIM, NurembergAt NIMCon, scholars met for scientific exchange on consumer behavior and consumer decisions. At this two-day event, researchers from world-leading Universities and research institutions came together to present their latest insights from (behavioral) economics, psychology, marketing, management, data science, artificial intelligence, and business informatics. The speakers included renowned scholars as well as emerging researchers from the scientific community. Together with NIM's excellent team, current research findings and novel approaches to study market decisions were discussed.
Recent projects
30 Years of AI in Marketing
This project leverages machine learning to identify and analyze the most influential research streams within the marketing literature on Artificial Intelligence (AI) over the past three decades.
Social Norms Nudges
In a joint effort between Aarhus University, Copenhagen Business School, and Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions, this project explores the efficacy of social norms nudges in promoting sustainable behaviors related to preventable food waste within households.