The Image of IKEA’s Online Portals in Times of COVID-19 With Regards to its CSR and Experiential Marketing- Exemplified by IKEA Austria

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The Image of IKEA’s Online Portals in Times of

COVID-19 With Regards to its CSR and Experiential Marketing-

Exemplified by IKEA Austria

Isabella Kullnig

Media and Communication Studies One-year Master’s Degree Program

15 Credits Spring/Summer 2020

Supervisor: Erin Cory Examiner: Michael Krona Contact Student: Isabella.kullnig@gmail.com

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Abstract Master Thesis

As a response to COVID-19, IKEA Austria is trying to encourage its customers to rediscover their homes via its online shop. It is making an enormous effort to translate the in-store activity to the digital world, so that its customers may still experience an emotional customer journey. This is done via new online features that call for co-creation and CSR image campaigns that inform about IKEA’s COVID-19 charity projects. The information and online shopping features addressed to IKEA customers reach them through diverse platforms, among them the website as the main online communication and distribution channel (Burt, 2011, p. 192). The analysis of this transition considers the impact of COVID-19 on offline and online shopping modes and includes the reflective interviews with recurring IKEA Austria customers. It ought to describe IKEA’s journey towards online experiential marketing, how it is connected to the company’s recent CSR activities and what effect this has on IKEA’s image. Affordance theory and uses and gratification are applied to analyze and discuss the interviewees’ perception (Norman, 2013; Gao & Feng, 2016). The results of the study showed, that the interviewees’ answers clearly point at a need for further customization of the online experience by IKEA Austria, by adopting virtual shop simulation, or employee assistance features. Since the online experience requires high levels of cognitive involvement on part of the customers, being offered very targeted features can make them experience “uses”, to then derive gratification from such distant visits to the shop. They further showed, that offline retail settings continue to offer an environment in which the customers can discover the products’ affordances without risking the distortion of their senses and thus perception of false affordances. Concluding, the respondents believed, that enforced COVID-19 CSR measures and experiential marketing activities triggered their positive image perception of IKEA Austria.

Keywords: experiential marketing, corporate social responsibility, corporate

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Index of Illustrations

Picture 1. In-store Scene in Closed Setting ... 8

Picture 2. In-store Scene in Open Setting ... 8

Picture 3. IKEA Place App ... 10

Picture 4. Room Planner App ... 10

Picture 5. IKEA Online Planning Sessions ... 12

Picture 6. IKEA CSR Information to Contain COVID-19 In-store... 12

Picture 7. IKEA Austria General COVID-19 Content ... 13

Picture 8. IKEA Austria Content by the Country Manager ... 13

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1 Introduction

There is an increasing amount of material available about the importance of an emotionally exciting and engaging offline customer experience. Today, many companies resort to unconventional, often experiential, product presentation methods to sell in-store. What many of the providers of such exciting shopping experiences have in common is that they would likely resort to experiential marketing practices to have their customers immerse in the shopping experience. In general, experiential marketing is often referred to as experience or engagement marketing and can be described by the product promotion strategies that are being applied by companies to boost their customers’ experience of the company brand. The companies’ aim of applying targeted product promotional strategies is to have the customers be an active part of the shopping experience. For this, the company needs to work on its image to keep the customers interested, which needs to be done offline and online. Swedish furniture giant IKEA and its Austrian franchise division, IKEA Austria, opt for providing a highly tangible journey through the store, across showrooms and other interactive points of interest. This allows the customers to be part of an engaging brand experience through the involvement of their senses, while experiencing positive feelings when testing the products. One of the ultimate goals of experiential marketing on the company side, as lived at IKEA, is to make customers engage by enjoying a memorable and emotional connection with the company brand, the customers in turn want to see their personal needs fulfilled and care about the best possible ethical conduct on part of the company. When feeling satisfied about the company’s actions, the customers’ positive image perception of the company brand may lead to increased customer loyalty and motivate them to come back to the store (Schmitt & Zarantonello, 2013, p. 28). The customers’ overall satisfaction with their journey can result in raised awareness, better perception of the company image and even purchase intentions. The success of this form of experiential marketing reflects itself in the return on investment of the companies’ financial and creative capital, which is also in the interest of the customers (Schmitt, 1999).

Hampering offline retail operations across the world, the COVID-19 crisis triggered a strong demand for companies’ online experiential marketing, not only

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to make up for the losses in stationary retail distribution, but also to keep customer loyalty at the highest possible level. As a pioneer of intriguing experiential marketing adventures in the furniture industry, IKEA Austria intends to bridge the physical distance to its customers by translating some of its offline elements to its digital media channels, including the online shop. In times of social distancing, the large numbers of customers, that IKEA previously used to lure into the stores, are now staying at home. Where customers could once engage in person with the products in a vivid real-life setting, they currently ought to primarily connect via digital media with IKEA. Due to temporary shop closures of brick and mortar stores in Austria and only recent reopenings of these with new measures for security and hygiene, the company needed to be highly innovative to keep its customers stay engaged from a distance (IKEA Austria, 2020). In the case of IKEA Austria, this meant a transition that implied that consulting sessions for interior design were moved online, current CSR projects and their status quo were openly communicated through the online shop and contact less delivery coupled with smooth online purchases was put in place. Enforcing its online activity, IKEA Austria was simultaneously running the smooth reopening of physical retail, while informing online about respective safety and hygiene measures. Trying to keep up with expectations in terms of customer centricity, IKEA was and still is undergoing an interesting journey throughout this transition. It resorted to CSR image campaigns and digital retail innovations to protect its image as an experiential retailer (Scorzin, 2016, p. 34).

The qualitative research includes an analysis of IKEA Austria’s customers’ opinion about IKEA’s image with regards to the company’s offline and online experiential marketing and CSR activities. The customers’ thoughts were analyzed by the help of reflective interviews (Roulston, 2010). The interviews should give insights into their view on IKEA Austria’s image and the uses and gratification and affordances they experienced when thinking about their customer journey at IKEA Austria. The analysis should further deliver an answer to how customers of IKEA Austria perceived the company’s COVID-19 measures taken throughout its transition from more offline, to enforced activity on its online shop. The interviewees therefore also discovered CSR content on the IKEA Austria website and were asked questions about it to evaluate the company’s measures on a virtual level. The visual material included in the background

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section under point 2.1 and 2.2, in the form of personal photos and images from the IKEA Austria website, is not part of the empirical analysis of this research project. It ought to provide the reader with some context to the questions the respondents were asked during the reflective interviews. The findings may give a better understanding for the crucial elements the customers value in the IKEA Austria shopping experience, including their awareness about and wish for sustainable conduct in business practices and how respective actions reflect themselves in the customers’ image perception of the company (Garriga & Melé, 2004).

1.1 Research Topic

At this point the central topic of the master thesis comes in: experiential marketing, CSR and how well these are integrated in IKEA Austria’s online presence from the point of view of frequent IKEA Austria customers, explained through the lens of uses and gratification and affordances. Also, it was analyzed how the company’s image was affected by the changes in offline and online activity and how these played into the perceived affordances, uses and gratification, that resulted out of the customers’ interactions.

The research questions are:

How have shifts in IKEA Austria’s CSR and experiential marketing affected the customers’ image perception of the brand?

How have shifts in IKEA Austria’s CSR and experiential marketing played into the customers’ perception of affordances, uses and gratification?

1.1.1 Experiential Marketing

According to Ketter (2018), when executed at the shop level, experiential marketing can be designed in different ways, these include the activation of the customers in a way, that they would face immersive moments with tangible or intangible elements. Such moments can include events, or direct interaction with products (Ketter, 2018, p. 132). According to Clarke et al. (2006), visual content may be one of the most effective ways to engage with them as the audience. Any visual component can be used online or offline, along with written content. For

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the purpose of engaging with their customers, companies may resort to videos, photos and illustrations (Clarke, et al., 2006). Strongly including the haptic sense and sense of sight, the IKEA Austria experience is made up of a variety of factors. These not only include the general showroom settings, but also the team of employees that is in direct contact with the customers. The active customer participation in the IKEA shopping environment is strongly linked to the inspirational living spaces staged in IKEA’s display areas (Garvey, 2017). According to Arnould, these spaces invite the customers to subjectively experience products and attain meaning to them (Arnould, 2005). The core elements of the experiential shopping experience reflect themselves in the growing demand for experience-based and customer-centric purchase processes. The wish for personal engagement that consumers may experience as part of experiential marketing is a reaction to their encounters with the IKEA Austria brand and its activities. They cater to their positive perception of the company’s image (Bruno, et al., 2018, p. 2). Experiential marketing helps companies to shape their customers’ opinion about them. For businesses, this means that providing the consumers with a memorable offline or online shopping experience, will lead to a better impression about their brand (Kolb, 1984, p. 37).

1.1.2 Corporate Image

According to Barich and Kotler (1991), corporate image is the perception the customers, business partners, suppliers, or the company’s own employees, as internal and external stakeholders, have of a specific company. The corporate image is connected to the impression of a company’s online activity (Barich & Kotler, 1991). Serafinelly (2018) would stress the importance of involving customers personally as brand advocators, so that they would think positively about the brand. Mutual exchange with brand advocators is crucial to make them feel they can identify with the brand (Serafinelli, 2018, p. 51). Virtanen et. al (2017) assume that online media platforms have become a natural tool for most companies’ image purposes. Since big part of digital content is visual, the consumers can process the content a lot faster than text information only. The authors argue that visual material can help in effectively building awareness. They believe that images and visual content can increase the traffic, including the shares and spread, and result in a positive perception of the corporate image (Virtanen, et al., 2017). In terms of its corporate image and like in other countries

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in which IKEA is present through franchise operations, IKEA Austria sells itself as easily accessible, democratic in its pricing policies and highly inspirational (IKEA Group, 2019).

1.1.3 Elements of Corporate Social Responsibility

Visser (2013) thinks that corporate social responsibility is a proven approach for companies to act socially accountable for their corporate actions, so that their environmental impact may affect society, the economy and environment in a way, that promotes wellbeing. Instead of defining CSR activities as altruistic conscience-easer by companies, or pure image campaigning, the author defends them by addressing the companies’ financial limitations as to the use of resources. CSR activities are often highly criticized by voices from the public. These assume that the companies’ intention would not be to create real social value for society. Visser (2013) further defines CSR through the ethically relevant elements that can be integrated into the vision, strategy, and the goals. The author says, that it is about the continuous efforts by the company, needed to provide for solutions, responses, management and actions to trigger some positive social impact for society (Visser, 2013, p. 4). Corporate social responsibility activities that are generally mentioned relating to IKEA franchise branches around the world are the support of local communities, education and empowerment of workers employed at IKEA production facilities and collaborations with charities (inter.ikea.com, 2019).

2 Context

As an IKEA franchise, IKEA Austria has launched numerous events, workshops, so to say live experiences, in their stores (IKEA Group, 2019). The COVID-19 virus did have an influence on IKEA’s retail presence in the offline world. To comply with governmental measures imposed to foster social distancing, IKEA Austria adopted diverse measures to slow down COVID-19 infection rates (InterIKEA, 2020). To give the reader some context about IKEA’s situation with regards of its COVID-19 activities that directly respond to governmental measures, the background to the situation of IKEA Austria is outlined in a descriptive way. Also, information about the common in-store and online experience with its new and old features, is given (usp.gv.at, 2020). As mentioned further above in the introduction, these description serve to deliver

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background knowledge about the research topic, no visual material and its descriptions is part of the empirical section.

Impact COVID-19 Measures on IKEA Austria:

Among the measures taken by the Austrian Federal Government are travel restrictions imposed on entries into the country, closure of public spaces and social distancing between March and the end of May (usp.gv.at, 2020). As part of major restrictions in retail, IKEA stores in Austria remained closed during the critical phase of the virus outbreak and were re opened under safety precautions in the beginning of May 2020 (Wiener Zeitung, 2020).

2.1 The Typical IKEA In-store Experience

The typical showroom scenes across different markets can be described as follows: In more than 313 IKEA stores in over 38 countries across the world, the IKEA experience commonly begins with an escalator that drops the customers on the first floor (IKEA, 2020). There they can decide to either start their shopping journey with food from the IKEA Food Restaurant or to explore the showroom area right away. There is a lot of product labeling visible, the paths are signposted so that consumers can find their way through the store without missing out on any product category. The showroom settings are modified quite frequently. The different sceneries displayed in the showrooms constantly provide for new inspiration for the customers (IKEA, 2020). According to Bruno at al. (2018) any showroom ought to recreate an interior scene by simulating a private home. Through the highly customizable in-store experience, consumers get a chance to display their self-image and self-expression. The product displays are intended to be an inspiration for new interior design ideas (Bruno, et al., 2018, p. 3). Depending on the theme, or type of room the showroom represents, the assortment of furniture varies depending on the items needed. Items are placed in relation to each other, so that consumers can still walk by these items and interact with them. There is always enough space around them. The viewers’ attention is equally drawn to the different groupings of single objects that are staged in the showroom setting. As to the elements of design, each individual showroom follows certain merchandising techniques. Especially noticeable are the special offer stands, placed in important spots, such as the entrance to

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showrooms and at smaller display sections. Every single item is staged as a building block of the total composition. As IKEA objects are created by product designers, every single item is one piece of design. The items can be combined in a lot of ways (IKEA, 2019). The accessory pieces can be combined with bigger furniture, meaning that cushions would be placed next to living room showrooms with seating furniture. The display areas generally receive great attention, the messages shown on the print posters and cardboard signs are striking, commonly rather difficult not to be recognized. As showrooms differ considerably in terms of size, the arrangement of furniture pieces is adapted to a variety of different places and room settings for different living situations. This is commonly demonstrated by the small spaces for less people, or a smaller budget. This is put in contrast with more generous spaces for more people, or a bigger budget. The open spaces commonly stage different models of the same type of furniture, for instance chairs as seating furniture (IKEA 2019). The closed spaces rather include entire room concepts with different furniture items, not so much different versions of the same item, meaning for instance different types of chairs. The combined colors create moods in the viewer. The color palette is commonly harmonious and any smaller items, meaning accessories, match the seating furniture. According to IKEA (2019), the commonly used bright colors create a sense of space, while dark colors create a sense of depth of the space. (IKEA, 2019). Depending on the type of room staged, the stimulating colors come across differently (IKEA Group, 2020). As to focal points, the pictures give an idea of the focus of the light, as extra lightning is placed onto single items to highlight them. The open sales areas are illuminated with white light, while closed spaces, such as kitchen or living room spaces are illuminated with warm light. The single items evoke the idea of modernly designed furniture and comfortable interior design. According to Garvey (2017), these details apply to IKEA stores on a global level, that generally targets the middle-class segment. The author assumes that the IKEA offline experience is thought to be for the many, just as portrayed by IKEA itself, since 1990. The company would repeatedly refer to its product solutions for the many (Garvey, 2017). Depending on the IKEA store, the showrooms can vary in size, adapting to the average living space available in the respective country (IKEA Group, 2020).

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Some of IKEA’s Typical In-store Showroom Scenes Showing Experiential Features:

Picture 1. In-store Scene in Closed Setting with Different Furniture Types. Own image, Kullnig, 2020

Picture 2. In-store Scene in Open Setting with Different Versions of the Same Furniture Type. Own

image, Kullnig, 2020

The images of showrooms, shown in picture 1 and in picture 2, show the recreation of private home scenes. In picture 1, an entire room scene is depicted, while in picture 2 various models of the same type of furniture are shown. Both options feature scenes captured in an IKEA store in Austria.

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2.2 The Virtual IKEA Experience

In contrast to the real-world experience described above, the online experience in the IKEA online shop used to be rather unspectacular, as it was geared towards the efficient purchase of products and did not include many experiential aspects. Over time, IKEA began to add more features to its online shops, than the original shopping cart functions and product descriptions. The simple distribution-only channel of IKEA was supplemented by communication material, such as inspirational design content. The company also added various applications for the design of room settings, including the mobile and desktop IKEA design applications, mentioned further down. More changes were made to online features after COVID-19 government restrictions were put in place (IKEA, 2020).

Old Features of the Virtual IKEA Experience:

Just as the in-store experience is highly customizable, the virtual product experience is subject to the customers’ personal decisions. Therefore, the consumers may or may not choose to get help by interior design apps that serve to digitally design room settings. They can also resort to customer service options to get extra information when feeling in doubt about their choice in products and how these would fit their homes (IKEA Austria, 2020). As shown in the pictures further down, some of IKEA’s typical online tools to make up for the lack of involvement of the senses, like the haptic sense, include the IKEA Room Planner app. These assist the customers in experiencing how IKEA products would fit their home settings best in terms of room dimensions and colors (Garvey, 2017). The Room Planner app simulates the in-store experience in a way, that an entire setting can be created and adapted to the personalized room dimensions. This offers the consumers the chance to create their own settings that may or may not resemble IKEA’s showroom settings and to combine a large variety of pieces designed by IKEA (IKEA Austria, 2019). The other app that is available is named IKEA Place app. It enables the consumers to include the single items into their existing interior design settings. Some furniture that is available in the IKEA print catalogue may serve as an item. Even though not all items of the IKEA product range are available for this online application, the customers can well imagine what their room would look like in real life. The material used for the analysis

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conducted was all made available to the public on the IKEA Austria website (IKEA Group, 2020).

Some of IKEA’s Online Interior Design Applications:

Picture 3. IKEA Place App. Retrieved from ikea.com/at, IKEA, 2019

Picture 4. Room Planner App. Retrieved from ikea.com, IKEA, 2019

The images of the two interior design apps available on the Austrian market, are shown in picture 3 and picture 4. In picture 3, the IKEA Place App is featured, in picture 4 the IKEA Room Planner App is shown (IKEA Austria, 2019).

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11 New Content Within the Virtual IKEA Experience:

Especially with regards to COVID-19, IKEA stores around the globe took certain CSR-measures and announced these online. The COVID-19 measures not only concern monetary and product donations but include extended online consultation services directed towards customers to replace the face-to-face offline offer during times of social distancing (IKEA Group, 2020). Advisory appointments can be booked online through IKEA websites of different countries, including Austria. These online meetings are offered on certain themes including for instance the kitchen option. Herefore the customer gets to see kitchen design solutions inspired by IKEA’s offline showroom settings. The material is made visible by an IKEA employee that guides the online planning session. The online planning sessions with IKEA employees are video calls with shared screens that enable the consumers to browse through the product range with the employees’ guidance, as if they were in the store. In addition, the layout options can be discussed, and the results captured as a design layout. The final product resembles IKEA’s showroom settings, as IKEA products are used. By the help of graphic design software any piece of furniture can be adapted to the user’s preferred room dimensions and customized to their taste (IKEA Group, 2020). Additionally, IKEA Austria shared new CSR content directly related to the COVID-19 crisis. It points at safety and hygiene measures to describe how IKEA Austria provides for customer and employee safety and includes the information about the use of protective surfaces in showrooms, about face masks and how IKEA would avoid touch screens in showroom areas (IKEA Austria, 2020).

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12 Some COVID 19 Measures Announced Online:

Picture 5. IKEA Online Planning Sessions. Retrieved from ikea.at, IKEA 2020

Picture 6. IKEA CSR Information to Contain COVID-19 In-store. Retrieved from ikea.at, IKEA 2020

Pictures 5 and 6 feature recent COVID-19 content. Picture 5 illustrates the online planning sessions that are implemented remotely with the help of IKEA personnel. Picture 6 shows the COVID-19 information section, comprising the safety measures taken to assure the containment of COVID-19 in-store (IKEA Austria, 2020).

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The COVID-19 content released by IKEA Austria includes content on IKEA’s measures taken as a response to the previous lockdown in Austria and recent transition to shop reopenings. All content is obtained from the IKEA Austria website. The analyzed material comprises the COVID-19 information page the user is directed to when clicking onto IKEA’s black information bar. The modes of shopping relevant for the information by IKEA Austria concern measures to keep customers and IKEA staff safe. The focus is equally on new digital features to bridge the physical distance to consumers and on product and monetary donations (IKEA Austria, 2020).

Picture 7. IKEA Austria General COVID-19 Content, Retrieved from: ikea.at, IKEA 2020

Picture 8. IKEA Austria Content by the Country Manager, Retrieved from: ikea.at, IKEA 2020

The COVID-19 information texts shown revolve around safety measures for consumers in a largely offline setting with some text parts about both, offline and online shopping modes. Picture 7 shows the safety measures in IKEA Austria

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stores, picture 8 comprises information relevant for consumers by IKEA Austria’s country manager (IKEA Austria, 2020).

The COVID-19 information by IKEA Austria concerns the reopening of IKEA stores in Austria and safety measures for consumers and employees. When translating the CSR texts to English language, the information about making a difference as a company and the shop closure of IKEA stores in Austria and their recent reopening, reads as follows: “Most importantly: We missed you. It is nice to have you back! You stayed loyal in these challenging times.” Further information states “We are happy to welcome you back in IKEA stores from May 2nd_{onwards.” Concerning the contactless options for logistics and payment}

in-store the information reads “We are improving our service offer, which means that you can currently get inspirations on our website, at IKEA.at and purchase products online and obtain them quickly and contactless.” (IKEA Austria, 2020).

Picture 9. IKEA Austria Product Donations, Retrieved from: ikea.at, IKEA 2020

IKEA Austria has further made it its goal to take up special problems within the COVID-19 crisis, these are currently donation projects for women’s shelters in Austria, and the local clown doctor initiative. Money was donated to these institutions to provide for liquidity at a time, where the flow of government donations was hampered by bureaucracy. IKEA Austria also organized product

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donations to provide medical institutions with face masks made out of IKEA fabric (IKEA Austria, 2020).

Picture 9 includes information about the different measures taken on a country level to combat COVID-19, it shows content about the Austrian “Corona Help” as the local charity project by IKEA.

3 Previous Research

3.1 Evolution of Experiential Marketing in Retail

Schmitt (1999) describes the concept to be originating from world fairs, such as the one that took place in Chicago in 1893, or the one in Paris in 1900. In these world fairs, companies got the chance to create their new technological innovations and to showcase these in front of potential consumers. This way, experiential marketing was created to help consumers experience a brand (Schmitt, 1999, p. 20). Before the actual term of experiential marketing was coined, Turner (1969) published conceptualizations of experiences within “structure” and “antistructure” and whether these would be of an “ordinary”, or “extraordinary” nature. The author defines structure as the overall organization and frame of society and differentiates between structural characteristics, including everyday norms and rules, roles and status and any practices related to the ordinary experience and the “antistructural” characteristics. These are in opposition to this ordinary life and transcend social structures and therefor constitute for extraordinary experiences (Turner, 1969, p. 131). More recently, LaSalle and Britton (2003) and Tumbat and Belk (2011) found that experiential marketing research can be studied by focusing on consumers as emotional and narcissistic human beings, that resort to consumption to create meaningful experiences. They seek emotionally intense hedonic consumption activities, that are unique, memorable and transformative. According to the author, the challenge of experiential marketing resides in linking these needs to everyday life (LaSalle & Britton, 2003; Tumbat & Belk, 2011).

Experiential marketing is a central concept to IKEA Austria's retail branding and plays positively into its brand image. Previous literature was written about outstanding, highly emotional retail experiences. So far, no research has been

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conducted about COVID-19 and how it forces a retailer like IKEA to resort to enforced branding measures for its online presence, to avoid losing an essential part of the typical retail experience, meaning the high customer engagement. Since experiential marketing is commonly used for offline channels, it is highly interesting to analyze by the example of IKEA Austria how a retailer's effort to translate such an experience to the online channel is being perceived during, before and after social distancing.

3.2 Evolution of Corporate Image

The first author to address the topic was Newman in 1953. He did so by drawing a comparison between corporate image and the human personality (Newman, 1953, p. 212). After, Boulding (1956) contributed to the topic of the image of a company by suggesting, that what an individual would believe to be true, in fact needs to be true to them (Boulding, 1956, p. 20). Shortly after, in 1958, Martineau (1958) suggested to draw a distinction between the functional meaning of the corporate image, including the tangible assets of quality, the businesses’ reliability, service, price and emotive meaning and the subjective feelings, that are more of an irrational nature (Martineau, 1958, p. 203). According to Swan and Trawick (1980) the image of a company is subject to the evaluations based on the individual’s previous expectations. Opinion concerning the corporate image are linked to the past experiences, often depending on how the individuals would evaluate past product purchases and services, as these factors depend on personal preferences (Swan & Trawick, 1980). Jeong and Park (2012) found that the corporate image gained in importance, with intensified competition on the world market. Ousting the competition from the market through nonprice factors with an experience character, rather than aggressive pricing strategies, was proven to be a more effective approach to boost image (Jeong, et al., 2014).

Since the consumer's perception of image is subjective and may change along with modifications in retail conditions and their influence on the customers’ overall experience, it will be necessary to analyze how IKEA Austria's image has changed with regards to COVID-19 and its consequences. No material is available about how safety and hygiene measurements adopted in retail hamper customer-centric product interaction in-store. Given, that not all the

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measurements adopted by IKEA Austria are inconvenient for their stakeholders, such as the COVID-19 charity projects, the perception of IKEA's image will also be analyzed with regards to COVID-19 CSR activities.

3.3 Evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility

According to Garriga and Melé (2004) CSR was coined in the second half of the 20th_{century by Bowen (1953). The author published material on the social}

responsibilities of the businessman. There has been a development of the terminology that spanned across more and more concepts, including phenomena, such as society and business, management of social issues, public policy, stakeholder management and corporate accountability (Garriga & Melé, 2004, p. 51). Garringa and Melé (2004) are among the authors that also talked about CSR at an earlier stage in business research. They argue that CSR is highly political, blurring boundaries between economic and political interests that make corporations take on a new political role in society (Garriga & Melé, 2004). Marrevijk and Were (2003) defined CSR as a custom-made process, depending on how the organization operates internally, what their aims and intentions look like and on the circumstances under which the organization operates (Van Marrewijk & Werre, 2003, p. 1). More contemporary theory on good corporate conduct, as part of the CSR measures comes from Filho et al. (2010). The authors illustrate that the measures can be applied as a brand-building tool for the company. Consumers expect the company to act and provide for good corporate conduct, which encourages the companies to act and donate, or contribute to the common good (Filho, et al., 2010). Visser (2013) argues that a business model including CSR helps companies to stay socially accountable, thereby their conduct would positively impact society, the economy, and environment (Visser, 2013). Finally, Jensen (2000) proposed CSR as an enlightened value maximization strategy, as society more recently began to accept that shareholder value maximization is not incompatible with satisfying certain interests of society. Within this concept, the corporation attains long-term value maximization as an objective (Jensen, 2000, p. 235).

Even though IKEA Austria's CSR activities have been analyzed in the past, no material can be found about a recent study, that would consider the company's ethical conduct and responsible action with regards to a pandemic. The special

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circumstances require IKEA to target a vast group of stakeholders, among them employees, customers and vulnerable individuals. Vulnerable groups might not necessarily lie within the company’s target group but are central to IKEA's COVID-19 CSR measures and campaigns and how these are perceived by society.

4 Theoretical Framework

The theories used for this thesis, namely the uses and gratification approach and the affordance theory, are applied to the observed phenomenon of the research. The theories are applied to the empirical data gathered through reflective interviews at a later stage of the thesis production process. They provide the framework for relevant explanations to be made for the empirical data and future implications in the discussion section. Applied through the lens of the theoretical framework this media and communication thesis will conclude with the concrete results of the customers’ perception and aspirations when facing an online media channel, such as IKEA Austria’s online shop.

4.1 Uses and Gratification Approach

Uses and gratification (UGA) were first mentioned from 1944 onwards to look for the reasons underlying the choice of a certain type of media. Consequently, according to Katz and Blumler (1973), the approach was used to understand the intentions of individuals to choose certain television programs over others. It further served Rubin (1994) to understand the basic psychological needs that shape people and how these use the media and studied how uses and gratification motivate them to engage in specific media use behaviors that lead them towards experiencing gratification, which again caters to their basic needs (Rubin, 1994). This helped to understand how people viewed mass media (Katz & Blumler, 1973). After 1980, UGA were applied to different forms of media. Analyzing the concept of Uses and Gratification from 1996 onwards, Höflich (1996) defines UGA as the advantage a receiver can obtain from mass media content and the related beneficial gratification that make them feel the urge to look for even more mass media content. The UGA helps to understand that media is a highly available product and that media audiences are the consumers of this media product. The UGA fosters communication at a mass media scale. It explains how the chosen media satisfies needs of the users on the receiver

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side. It allows for gaining knowledge, enables social interaction, or the experience of diversion as of the content the consumers are consuming. According to the author, the receivers, thus audiences, are not passive consumers of media. They assume an active role in media consumption and are influenced by the sender of the informational content in terms of their perception. The emphasis on uses and gratification of single media channels makes Höflich (1996) form part of the group of more recent researchers (Höflich, 1996). The method was continuously evolved. According to Gao and Feng (2016) the UGA is a highly useful theory to examine media use motivations, as it assumes that is the consumer of media that selects the media they want to consume (Gao & Feng, 2016, p. 869). The authors assume that it is crucial to find out what gratification users of social media are seeking, since brands need to respond to their needs through appropriate content the consumers can engage with. They would further refer to the active information seekers as “information digesters”, meaning the consumers when they feel their cognitive and aesthetic needs are satisfied by the content they consume (Gao & Feng, 2016, p. 871).

Uses and gratification are essential to evaluate the acceptance of IKEA Austria's online channel. Taking the online shop as a mass media channel, the theory of uses and gratification helps to define the customer's role as an active information seeker for new content shared online by IKEA. It can help to explain how customers of IKEA Austria experience the company’s digital experiential marketing at home, through co-creation. The theory will help to explain the motivations related to the consumers' interest in engaging online shopping experiences and the retrieval of uses and gratification from engaging experiences and ethically relevant causes.

4.2 Affordance Theory

Gibson (1966) defined the term as the individual’s perception of their surroundings. The author stresses the importance of not only perceiving object shapes and spatial relationships, but to also considering object possibilities for action, so to say “affordances”. He thinks that perception drives action. The author believes that affordance is what an environment offers the individual, it is the individual’s environment, changed by them to better suit them. This might imply making it harder for other creatures to exist but would lie in the human nature. Any material manufactured by humans, so to say the material world, is

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subject to human manipulation. Individuals can understand some objects’ affordances for themselves and for others. By adapting to society’s practices, the individuals learn about affordances that constitute for conventional meaning and begin to adapt to these. Other than that, the theory deals with how personal factors and sociocultural ones would define the perception of affordances. Humans learn to adapt to other individuals’ perceptions (Gibson, 1966). Applying affordance theory, it can be argued, that when analyzing the highly tangible components staged in the offline experience, the consumers may not need a lot of verbal assistance to understand the products of interest. They can directly experience them by the involvement of their senses. For instance, this could be done in a physical store experience, as shown on the images, as it enables a physically engaging perception of products. As to the product’s perceived affordances in-store, it is to say that some products may call for more cognitive involvement, when being explored by the consumers (Gibson, 1966). The affordance theory helps to define how content receivers would perceive their surroundings. This concerns their perception of object shapes and spatial relationships. Gibson’s (1966) findings helped developers of communication interfaces to provide for user-centered design, as the concept helped in raising awareness for the goals, beliefs and past experiences that play into the affordances that an actor would finally link to an object (Gibson, 1966). Norman (1988) added to this, that a human being may perceive certain object possibilities for action. Action depends on the object possibilities. He believes that perception drives action. Affordances are about what an environment offers to the individuals, individuals can change these environments to make them suit them. Therefore, the surrounding is subject to the individual's manipulation. The author would further suggest that the material and social worlds are intrinsically connected to one another (Norman, 1988). Going into further detail, Gaver (1991) divided affordances into categories. He referred to the most important categories as perceptible, hidden and false. A perceptible affordance would be the information the way the actor understands it to be, without any misunderstanding as to how to act. The hidden ones might give the single individual options for how to act, but they will not be able to perceive them clearly, while another person could detect them. A false affordance does not have an actual function, this means that the individual might perceive functions, even though these do not even exist. This can cause misunderstandings (Gaver,

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1991). Building up on Gibson’s (1966) affordance theory, describing in further detail how the world may be perceived by the individual, van Lier (2004) described affordances as an ecological term, thus as the learner’s agency in perception and action. The author believes that this perception is dynamic and that it emerges from the interactions between the individual and their environment. This means that affordances are not mere properties of artifacts but stand for the relationships between properties of tangible elements, or people and the individual’s personal goals and capabilities and the context of their environment. Different individuals may perceive that distinct tangible elements provide for different possibilities for action (van Lier, 2004, p. 221). Using affordance theory for the in-store experience, all components staged in the offline experience relate to an experience that implies the involvement of the senses. It requires cognitive involvement, as the consumers need to experience the potential features of the products of interest within their relationship with the tangible features, to match these with their individual goals and aspirations (van Lier, 2004, p. 100). The online experience requires a different cognitive involvement, as the consumers ought to experience more about the intangible and digital features to experience the relationship with the digital artifacts that make affordances recognizable for them (Gibson, 1966). Maier and Fadel (2007) found results that point to an infinite number of affordances, since they refer to the countless environments an individual can interact with and the infinite number of artifacts (Maier & Fadel, 2007). Zeleke et al. (2008) found that affordances refer to relational and functionally significant properties and are linkable to objects in the environment (Zeleke, et al., 2008). Building up on this knowledge, Norman (2013) added signifiers to the affordances. He would further differentiate between tangible and intangible, with signifiers as actions without physical properties. Affordances would determine the exact actions that can be done, while signifiers would indicate where the actions can take place (Norman, 2013). Mehan (2016) further found out, that affordances emerge when individuals’ physical dimensions and abilities and their personal intentions are matched with the environment and its features. Different patterns found in the environment call for different behaviors as to the affordances and result in different aesthetic experiences. According to the author, it is the affordances of a given environment, that influence the aesthetic choices of an individual, affordances can either be limited, or extended. Based on the previous research about the

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individual’s role in terms of how they can change natural and artificial environments, they can alter the affordances and influence the set of affordances that they own. (Mehan, 2016, p. 18). Applied to an increasingly online setting of intangible elements and their affordances, Hou et al (2017) suggested that online product information as part of an online feature, referring to this element of interaction between user and product, already serves as the source to draw affordances from (Hou, et al., 2017).

Affordance theory will be applied for the analysis of the elements within the IKEA Austria experience, that constitute for the analog experiential marketing applied by IKEA Austria. Since the offline IKEA experience implies numerous tangible features, the theory will be useful to evaluate whether the perception of these elements on part of the consumers can be linked to perceptible, hidden or false affordances (Norman, 2013). Also, it will help to detect the aspirations consumers have with regards to the objects, to draw implications for their cognitive involvement concerning digital features. This ought to guide the researcher towards an understanding of how the consumers experience the company brand, customization of the customer journey and how they perceive IKEA Austria’s reaction to their very own affordances (van Lier, 2004).

5 Empirical Procedure

This thesis implies a secondary, as well as primary data analysis part. The secondary data collected was gathered from pre-existing sources. Those sources comprise content found in books, scientific articles, all gathered either digitally via research databases, or in analog form from libraries. According to Stewart and Kamins (1993) secondary data provides the researcher with a good knowledge about the status quo in research about a specific topic. The secondary research can either back up or revise and update previous findings. For this thesis, findings from secondary literature and exploratory research were included (Stewart & Kamins, 1993).

The secondary research process implied the researcher’s data collection of company content shared on the company website of IKEA Austria. The researcher went through the different pages of IKEA Austria’s website and

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complemented the content with own visual material taken inside IKEA Austria stores after recent reopenings of physical branches.

The primary, thus empirical research included the analysis and interpretation of five reflective interviews held with IKEA customers in Austria. The interviews were analyzed by the help of hermeneutic phenomenology and linked to overarching themes, relevant to the research questions. As a first step, a suitable target group was identified for the investigation, with the criteria, that the individuals needed to be frequent IKEA shoppers. Various potential candidates were contacted to take part in this research. The contacts had been established through the researcher’s Austrian network and contacted one by one. Among the approached individuals that agreed to participate in this research, are five females, all aged between 25 and 30. As to the sample, it is to say, that, since hermeneutic phenomenology was used for analysis, criterion sampling of participants who met the predefined criteria was applied. The criterion of being highly knowledgeable about IKEA’s online and offline retail presence was used to define who would finally participate in the interviews. As recommended by Moser and Korstiens (2018) concerning sample size, a total of five individuals was chosen. The answers provided were satisfactory and all contributed to the overall findings needed to answer the research questions. The authors argue that less than ten participants are required for an analysis of phenomenological nature (Moser & Korstiens, 2018). The respondents’ answers were linked to themes that referred to the research topic. None of the participants were native English speakers, however, they all have a sophisticated English level, so that they could express their thoughts without any bigger restrictions or difficulties. As German speakers, they could easily follow the online texts in German language, that the researcher read out loud to them on the IKEA Austria website. All of them knew the IKEA brick and mortar stores well and were familiar with the IKEA online shop. Before the reflective interviews, the participants were informed about the broad scope of the research, including the general topic and methodology. Without receiving too many details, they were not told beforehand that IKEA Austria would be the company in the focus of the investigation about experiential marketing, CSR and how these are included in IKEA’s online channels. Thus, the participants knew, that they would be asked about the image they perceived of a company, based on their impression of content from a

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website and their personal experience. All the reflective interviews had been conducted personally in various meetings, each of them between the researcher and one of the five participants. All interviews were conducted between May 21st

and May 23rd_{, 2020. This way, the communication between sender and receiver}

was analyzed. The participants were informed that everything they said would be treated anonymously and that there would be no right or wrong. They were told that their impressions of the website are totally subjective and not to be judged or evaluated in terms of the most logical, or most comprehensive answer to be provided. The intention was to create the feeling, that the participants could speak freely, being able to express any upcoming thoughts and avoid the urge to perform well in the interview. During the interviews, the main topics that were asked revolved around previous and current IKEA CSR measures, the interviewees’ shopping behavior with regards to IKEA’s offline and online channels and their personal perception of the IKEA brand. However, sometimes the researcher encouraged the participants to put special emphasis on the transition with regards to IKEA Austria’s COVID-19 measurements. The full interview guide can be found in the appendix (see 12.2). Once the 17 main interview questions were asked, the researcher intended to dig deeper and pick up on extra information about how the consumers would imagine the stores to be like in the future, to gain further material for future implications. In this context, 2 to 3 extra questions were asked. The impressions and thoughts shared during the reflective interviews were recorded and transcribed. The full transcripts can also be found in the appendix (12.3.1 to 12.3.5).

6 Research Questions

The research problem is connected to these research questions:

How have shifts in IKEA Austria’s CSR and experiential marketing affected the customers’ image perception of the brand?

How have shifts in IKEA Austria’s CSR and experiential marketing played into the customers’ perception of affordances, uses and gratification?

To tackle the research problem and to answer the research questions, the interviewees were asked about the company’s offline and online activity as its

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response to the restrictions imposed by the Austrian Federal Government on retail as a consequence of the pandemic. The questions are directed towards the customers’ expectations about the IKEA Austria customer experience and what had remained the same and what changed for them as IKEA Austria customers in terms of their image perception and the uses and gratification and affordances they experienced. With regards to the first question about the concepts of experiential marketing and CSR, the interviewees were asked to share information about the way they experienced experiential marketing at IKEA, its status quo and future. They further explained what thoughts IKEA’s COVID-19 measures evoked in them as IKEA customers and shared their opinion about the degree of the responsible conduct shown by the company and its enforced experiential online activity. The idea is to understand how they perceived IKEA Austria’s image through their experience with IKEA Austria’s experiential marketing and CSR. The second research question is about these recent shifts in experiential marketing, CSR and how these influence the customers’ initial perception of affordances, uses and gratification found in the IKEA Austria shopping experience.

7 Methodology

The relevant transcribed findings gathered through the reflective interview method were listed under themes and analyzed through hermeneutic phenomenology. The theoretical framework featuring uses and gratification and affordances was applied to these and they were complemented with context information. The observations made about IKEA Austria’s typical offline experience, including the visual material presented in terms of personal photos and images taken from the IKEA Austria website, are not part of the empirical analysis of this research project, but ought to provide the reader with some context to the questions the respondents are asked in the course of the reflective interviews.

7.1 Research Method

7.1.1 Reflective Interviews

According to Roulston (2010), reflective interviews are intended to create detailed descriptions of the different participants’ reactions to the phenomenon

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that is investigated. (Roulston, 2010, p. 93). The output should cater to a good understanding of the participants’ feelings, perceptions, and understandings. To be able to reflect on their experience, the participants needed to have experienced IKEA’s offline and online channels and be familiar with the company brand. Hermeneutic phenomenology is often used for researchers who are keen on obtaining more detailed stories of lived experiences from their interviews (Roulston, 2010). The reflective interviews help to understand the participants’ general description of their experience, to then be able to go to a more detailed level of thought. On this level, the researcher can clarify what the interviewees mean by the terms and expressions they use. This way, any conflicting statements can be eliminated and potential misunderstandings that might arise, avoided. The researcher can then use more general descriptions when putting the results into perspective through the chosen theory (Roulston, 2010, p. 54).

7.1.2 Hermeneutic Phenomenology

According to Patterson and Higgs (2005) and their research on hermeneutic phenomenology, the content that can be retrieved through the reflective interviews requires some hermeneutic approach for the interpretation of the information gathered. The hermeneutic approach is often described as a handy method of analysis, as it helps to characterize the dialogue between the text and reader (Paterson & Higgs, 2005, p. 338). The analysis method helps to originate from a perspective that would contain the entire picture, going towards a direction that comprises the prediction. This would then result in a smaller unit of analysis. Then again, the researcher concludes with the big picture. The method is known to provide for some decent understanding of the communicated content of the observations made by the interviewees (Paterson & Higgs, 2005, p. 339). Brinkmann and Steinar (2014) believe, that the hermeneutic approach for interpreting the findings is frequently combined with phenomenology. Both approaches are commonly used to interpret qualitative data that has been collected. In phenomenology, the focus is typically on the human experience. Highlighting the subjective experience that is lived by the individual, the researcher can gather useful knowledge about the respondents’ feelings, thoughts, and their general perception (Brinkmann & Steinar, 2014). Phenomenology considers individuals to be active thinkers, estimating that they gain meaning through experience and social processes. They are thought to

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have their personal interpretations of their social worlds and that it is them who give meaning to these worlds. As the individuals have their proper thoughts, they have their own thinking processes and personal emotions, which are entirely subjective. When being confronted with these different truths, the researcher learns about thoughts and feelings about the topic at stake, based on subjective experience, views, opinions, motives and attitudes (Brinkmann & Steinar, 2014).

7.1.3 Comparison Data Collection Methods

At this point the benefits and drawbacks of qualitative data collect methods are identified to describe why the specific approach was chosen for the data collection. It will be discussed and contrasted with other data collection methods that are associated with quantitative research, to discuss the specific benefits and drawbacks for this study.

Mayring (2010) argues, that unlike qualitative data analysis, quantitative data analysis implies an investigation of numbers and their correlations. The investigation is done through mathematical operations, the results are derived from quantity to draw credible conclusions. The conclusions are being drawn under consideration of big samples, not so much for small numbers of respondents (Mayring, 2010). In contrast to the quantitative methods stand qualitative methods. They are less structured. Qualitative research is non-statistical, and any assumptions made are based on a sample that is by far smaller than the ones used in quantitative approaches. Since the number of specific cases is much smaller, the results may not appear to be that representative of the entire population from which the sample is drawn, when compared to the case of quantitative numbers (Mayring, 2010). Nevertheless, qualitative research is an explanatory research approach, that is executed with the aim to gain some deeper insights into a problem. In qualitative design the purpose is directly revealed. Qualitative research is often applied to gather additional information, so that a problem can be specified in further detail (Mayring, 2010). According to Hsiu-Fang and Shannon (2005), as a form of qualitative analysis, the qualitative analysis of feedback about past and more recent experiences and the subjective perception of image, do not require the conduct of complex experiments. Nevertheless, it is necessary for participants to be able to access the appropriate media and communication channels to be

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analyzed. This was done in the case of reflective interviewing (Hsiu-Fang & Shannon, 2005).

7.2 Limitations

Due to the limited time frame of the thesis production, it is not possible to focus on company-internal aspects of IKEA Austria to be analyzed from an insider perspective. It is only possible to deliver a general overview of the customers’ current perception about IKEA Austria with regards to its experiential marketing across distribution channels and its CSR activities. Thus, strategic measures will be analyzed by the help of the external opinion about the publicly available information and without any involvement of IKEA staff. According to Rose (2016), individuals may very likely envision content, such as content displayed online, differently from person to person (Rose, 2016, p. 15). This is why answers to the interviews remain highly subjective and deliver insights into potential trends, rather than overall generalizations based on statistics (Mayring, 2010). Further, it was not possible to analyze customers’ thoughts about IKEA, its image and COVID-19 material on the website and the offline and digital shopping processes for more countries than Austria, since the researcher had to resort to her local Austrian network to gather a representative number of participants for the interviews. Since all interviews were held between May 21st_{and May 23}rd_2020,

the interviewees were asked to comment on the reopening stores in Austria, as these had already been opened for the public when the interviews were held. The answers to the reopenings diverge, as some of the individuals had already been to the recently opened stores at that point, while others had not.

8 Ethics

According to Somekh and Lewin (2005), a researcher needs to follow a set of criteria that are relevant from an ethical point of view. Thus, special emphasis was placed on objectivity, credibility, openness, and respect for intellectual property as to private and publicly available information. As to objectivity, the researcher especially aimed at avoiding bias in the part of the research project that provides for the context information of the topic and does not concern empiricism. This means that interpretations were based on objective corporate sources in the secondary analysis and on subjective information shared by the interviewees in the primary analysis. To provide for credibility, any factors, that

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might impact the scope of this research were included in the limitations part (Somekh & Lewin, 2005, p. 39). As mentioned by Farrimond (2013) in her ethical research guidelines, there will always remain some subjective interpretation within primary research including information from individuals. The researcher needs to be conscious about the background, the experiences the individuals have collected relating to the research topic. Demographic factors may determine the individuals’ knowledge as in- or outsiders of the topic (Farrimond, 2013). As the researcher is a frequent IKEA shopper herself and has both, knowledge about the online shop and about the offline experience, she could explore the topic by learning about other IKEA advocates’ opinions facing the experiential marketing concept and how IKEA Austria copes with it facing the COVID-19 crisis. The individuals’ thoughts may either resemble her own opinion or appear to be different (Farrimond, 2013). As to openness, the researcher accepted constructive feedback about her work and adapted the structure of the thesis according to the recommendations given by her supervisor. She also considered the feedback provided at the final seminar aimed to discuss and defend the thesis. Also, frequent updates in terms of COVID-19 measures were taken into consideration and included in her analysis. To show respect for intellectual property, the researcher respected copyright of corporate content and sourced verbal content on part of the interviewees as their personal information. As to privacy and publicly available information, all corporate information obtained was made public by IKEA. This means that Information retrieved from the IKEA website is of no concern to compliance with ethical conduct in research. The same applies to the privacy of the respondents, as the researcher asked for their consent to take part in the interviews and to disclose their demographic data, besides the answers given to the interview questions (Farrimond, 2013).

9 Presentation and Analysis of Results

9.1 Presentation Results Interviews

Based on the findings for the interviews on IKEA’s transition from offline to online channels, its experiential marketing and CSR, with five IKEA customers, the results were grouped under themes relevant to each concept, meaning experiential marketing, CSR and image perception.

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9.1.1 Results Interview 1

As to the demographic questions, respondent 1 (R1) answered, that she is 26 years old and that she currently lives in Graz, Austria and that she is a frequent IKEA shopper.

Corporate Social Responsibility:

With regards to Corporate Social Responsibility and how well IKEA implements this concept, the respondent answered that she was familiar with the term and that she believed that IKEA as a business corporation, would implement some enforced corporate action for the sake of their image. Nevertheless, she was surprised, when she learned about the scope of current charity activities on part of IKEA to combat the COVID-19 crisis. Her impression about IKEA’s sustainable image was not too good at first, as she believed that the company could have done more for the environment. The “Corona Help Austria” project left a good impression on her.

IKEA Austria’s Past CSR Conduct

At first, R1 believed that some elements of CSR were implemented by IKEA Austria. As to her impression about the sustainable conduct on part of IKEA, she was certain, that the company did include sustainable activities too well, even though she believed that employees were accounted for in terms of CSR measures.

IKEA Austria’s Offline CSR Measures

R1 perceived the combination of visual content and text shared on the IKEA Austria website about the retail outlet reopening as pleasant, since the information was straight forward and helped her to understand the new rules that shape her offline process. She appreciated the given explanations as to hygiene and safety.

R1: “I think they’re clear and easy to follow. They are not exaggerating things and they are writing in a very positive way...” [11:20]

R1 further welcomed the clear and encouraging language of IKEA. After learning about the COVID-19 safety measures, she felt that the company prepared the consumers well for a future visit to the store.

The Image of IKEA’s Online Portals in Times of COVID-19 With Regards to its CSR and Experiential Marketing- Exemplified by IKEA Austria