Investigating Everyday Interface Cultures and Hidden Spheres of Production in M.A. Seminars at HAWK Hildesheim: Design Management, Design Strategy, and Research through Design (RtD)
Research at the M.A. Gestaltung program, Faculty of Design, HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Hildesheim, Germany)
Lisa Theil: “Consumer Brands – Emotional Brand Attachment Across Generations and Strategic Future Perspectives for the Food Industry” (2025)
The master’s thesis “Consumer Brands – Emotional Brand Attachment Across Generations and Strategic Future Perspectives for the Food Industry” by Lisa Theil examines how brands in saturated markets build emotional relationships with consumers and why these remain powerful beyond functional product attributes. Starting from a personal consumption experience, the study develops a systematic analysis of brand loyalty, affect, and identity formation. It combines theoretical approaches to emotion, brand identity, customer experience, and storytelling with a critique of the marketing concept of the “love brand,” proposing instead the more nuanced notion of “brands of affect” to capture the diversity of emotional purchasing motives.
Empirically, the thesis draws on surveys, interviews, and visual ethnography to compare generational consumer cultures from Baby Boomers to Generation Z. The findings reveal clear differences: while older generations tend to be shaped by habit and trust, younger cohorts orient themselves toward sustainability, activism, and digitally mediated brand communication. Brands function as generational identity markers through which values, lifestyles, and expectations about the future are articulated.
Figure: Lisa Theil: “Consumer Brands – Emotional Brand Attachment Across Generations and Strategic Future Perspectives for the Food Industry” (Master’s thesis, HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hildesheim, Faculty of Design, 2025)
On this basis, Theil employs trend research and scenario planning to develop four possible futures for the German food market in 2045 and derives strategic recommendations for companies. A central conclusion is the need for an adaptive, learning-oriented understanding of strategy that takes ethnographic research seriously and aligns brand management with social, ecological, and technological transformations. Emotional brand attachment thus remains a key driver of success—provided it is cultivated in differentiated, generation-specific, and future-oriented ways.
Lisa Theil: “Consumer Brands – Emotional Brand Attachment Across Generations and Strategic Future Perspectives for the Food Industry”
Master’s Thesis Project 2025 Supervised by: Prof. Konstantin Haensch, Prof. Sabine Cole
Isabelle Wydra: „The Male Gaze: Patriarchal Structures in Everyday Life and Design Processes with Reference to Product Design“ (2025)
Consumer Culture & Theory, Design Critique
This master’s thesis investigates how patriarchal structures and gender stereotypes are embedded in everyday products, spatial environments, and professional design processes. Combining feminist theory, sociological concepts such as Doing Gender, and contemporary design research, the project analyzes historical genealogies of gendered form, materiality, and usability while grounding these perspectives in an empirical user survey. The […]
Tina Böse: „Mood Atlas in the Tension Field of Student Living Environments“ (2025)
Design Ethnography/Cultural Probes, Material Cultures
When we think of science, we often picture test tubes, formulas, diagrams, and boxes—frames that contain, categorize, and attempt to represent the world. Yet some topics are highly complex and resist being reduced to simple visualizations. They demand effort to be made legible—and remain no less compelling for it, waiting to be explored and articulated […]
Publication: “Essay on ‘Customering’ – Third Spaces of Consumer Culture” (2025)
Consumer Culture & Theory
In “Essay on ‘Customering’ – Third Spaces of Consumer Culture,” Konstantin Haensch reconceptualizes the “customer” not as a passive consumer or mere transaction partner, but as a participant in an evolving social relationship that unfolds between providers and markets. Drawing on sociology, anthropology, marketing theory, and cultural studies, the article traces how customer relations historically […]
