Tapahtumat

Smiles in Marketing

Magnus Söderlund is Professor of Marketing and Head of the Center for Consumer Marketing (CCM) at the Stockholm School of Economics. He has long and acknowledged experience in studying consumer reactions to marketing stimuli, and his research focuses on consumer reactions such as satisfaction, emotions, perceptions of justice, and loyalty. Currently, he is interested in effects on customers who are engaged in face-to-face encounters with firm representatives (i.e. human beings).

As far as humour in marketing is concerned, the main effect is customer joy. Yet, customer joy can be evoked also by other means than humour, and this presentation focuses on the effects of the use of smiles in marketing (smiling employees and smiling models in ads). The presentation also deals with customer joy as an alternative to satisfaction in capturing the consumer’s overall response to an offer. Magnus has published his research in several journals and books; his most recent book, Marketing and its influence on the consumer, was given the Swedish award The Marketing Book of The Year in 2015.

Humor and Collective Activity

Dr Alyona Ivanova has PhD in psychology from the Lomonosov Moscow State University. Alyona works as a Senior Researcher in the Mental Health Research Center (MHRC) and teaches as a Senior Lecturer in the Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University in Moscow. Alyona also works as a practical psychologist, consultant and psychotherapist. She has been a humour scholar since 2003 and is an active member of the International Society for Humor Studies. In 2015 she organized a 6-day international scientific multidisciplinary event, the 15th International Summer School on Humour and Laughter at the Institute of Philosophy of the St. Petersburg State University, Russia. 

After participating in a Russian-Finnish consulting project she became interested in the role of humor in collective activity. She is going to present humour as a way to establish and maintain social belonging which is one of the innate human needs. Humour and laughter in a collective activity increase emotional togetherness and intellectual and creative cooperation at the same time. Collective laughter makes it easier to discuss opposite ideas and coordinate individual motives. Humour allows passing one’s holistic vision, experience and point of view. Humor and laughter let people negotiate for subjective (motives) and objective (what people work on together) sides of a collective activity at the same time. Thus the aim of humour is rather serious.

Humor in the Organizational Context: Should we be having a laugh?

Piotr Pluta is the Managing Director responsible for consultancy at Human Factors AS in Oslo – the company behind the most used team-tool in Norway, the Diversity Icebreaker. He is also the author of the PsychologyOfHumor.com blog. His research interest relate to humor in organizational and cross-cultural contexts, as well as to measurement of individual differences in using humor. Piotr is also leading the Humor Profiler project, which is aimed at creating a tool for mapping ‘humor practice’ in teams.

Piotr will hold a presentation introducing some key areas of theory and research related to humor and leadership, team and performance. Furthermore, he will share with you examples of approaches and tools for addressing humor in HR interventions and workshops. From time to time, he will also make a humble attempt to make you laugh – although being a humor scholar and entrepreneur does not automatically make one a comedian.

People are different – and different in many different ways, too. This can be either a blessing or a curse, when it comes to a successful teamwork and cooperation. The first, important step in order to take advantage of diversity is to know and be able to talk about it in a safe, functional way.

And this is what the Diversity Icebreaker is about… and much more.

During the demonstration, the participants will experience the actual Diversity Icebreaker workshop; they will learn something about themselves, something about the others and about how the others perceive them. The attending will also get the basic information on how to use the tool and apply it themselves in their teams or organizations.

The Diversity Icebreaker is an energising workshop based on a scientifically validated questionnaire. The tool provides a pain-free, hands-on introduction to diversity. It was developed in Norway between 1995-1997 by Human Factors AS. To date, the tool has been translated into 19 languages and is being implemented in both very large and small organizations worldwide. The main application areas include: team and project work, leadership development, communication trainings, kick-offs, cross-cultural and diversity trainings, etc.

More information and video: www.diversityicebreaker.com