Social practice / Term 3.1

The use of the color orange to show what the discounts are, in the Albert Heijn these are called BONUS products.

The BONUS products are displayed at the centre path so you walk by a lot of BONUS products when you are searching for other products, which creates you giving the BONUS products more attention because you are confronted with them.

The spatial setting

The blue cards mean that the product is currently out of stock.

This obsevation was done on tuesday 13-10-2020.

I also know Albert Heijn has commercials on tv quite a lot (for example they are a big sponsor in soccer) as well as on instagram and snapchat. So they use a variety of platforms to reach their audience.

Picture from outside, dated: 06-2016

Level 1 – Cashier A, Quality employee, Sales employee and member of the filling crew.

Level 2 – Cashier Selfscan, Cashier B.

Level 3 – Department manager.

Level 4 – Supermarket manager.

Renee de Keijzer / 0959947

What importance does hiararchy have in a supermarket and how can I create awareness about this amongst customers?

Mapping of the body movement of the different levels in the store

In this mapping I mapped the body movement of the employees in the Albert Heijn, showing how the different levels move in the store and where their "area of working is" generally.

It also shows the 'restricted acces areas', these are the spaces where only certain levels can come or some where you need a good reason to be. These are areas that customers aren't allowed to go to anyways but some levels also do not have acces to.

This obviously influences their way of moving in the store, as you can see Level 1 is only allowed to go to the cantine and from Level 2 and above a lot more areas are accesable.

Commercial from Albert Heijn, there was a lot of discussion about this.

The perfect "Customer" is a white male with glasses?

The woman of color with child gets the 'City-Budget' label?

A lot of orange in combination with blue

"Protective glass" at check-out

Caucasion people as managers & people of color as lower-ranked employees in AH commercials

When you go to the job applicant site, you mainly see caucasion people

Click on this pic to see the website

When using the search term "employees Albert Heijn Rotterdam" you get this picture with only caucasion employees, which is not the reality at all.

The wider context of the space

Then (1980)

Now (2020)

Migration groups from Turkey, Morocco, Spain, Suriname and the Netherland Antilles just arrived to Rotterdam around this time

Reconstruction times after the war

Use of a lot of brick in the Architecture, massive & quick builds, functional but not very detailed.

A lot more cultural diversity among the employees

The store is located in the city centre, back then and now. It's near a busy street and a lot of people work in the area.

Population Rotterdam to migration background (2020):
47,7% - No migration background.
8,1% - Suriname.
4,1% - The Netherland Antilles.
7,4% - Turkey.
7,0% - Marocco.
2,4% - Cape Verde.
10% - Other not-Western.
8,6% - Other European Union.
4,7% - Other Western.

Population Rotterdam to migration background (1980):
64,7% - No migration background.
8,4% - Suriname
1% - The Netherland Antilles.
4,7% - Turkey.
5,2% - Marocco.
1,7% - Cape Verde.
4,3% - Other not-Western.
5,7% - Other European-Union.
4,1% - Other Western.

The reason this migration took place was for work, to work in the harbours of Rotterdam.

The architect behind the buildings on Groenendaal is H.A. Maaskant. He is also the architect that designed the Euromast.

The buildings have not been renovated and still look exactly the same as they did in the 1980's.

There are no schools near this Albert Heijn so this target group doesn't come here often.

In the area around the store a lot of people live, mainly from ages 25-35 but also a lot of 60+.

Now a days the people who work in the city tend to live more towards the suburbs, as the houses in the city tend to be small and with little to no garden.

In the 1980's the people who lived in this area were more between the age of 18-30, probably because they were working in the city.

The elderly would have been more likely to live in a more quiet area, like the suburbs. Where they would also have more space and a bigger home.