The personal shopper as a communication support for the Mercadão brand

: analysis and implementation

Abstract

Personal Shoppers represent the cornerstone of Mercadão’s business. They carefully select and collect the products purchased through Mercadão’s online store and deliver them to customers’ addresses. The purpose of this thesis is to understand how Personal Shoppers can be used as a communication tool. To do so, it will be analysed how personality, outfit and vehicle can be used to communicate for the brand Mercadão. On the one hand, personal shoppers represent the major number of personal contacts that customers might have with Mercadão. As brand’s identity is carried and represented by each member of the company, Personal Shoppers should take advantage of the delivering moment to strengthen the relationship with the customer (Wang et al., 2018). On the other hand, personal shoppers are “advertising boards in constant movement”. Therefore, there is a huge opportunity to communicate relevant content on their xi clothes and commercial vehicles. A considerable amount of people notices and recall important elements as the name of the brand, colour, logo, slogans, and images present on these boards (Roux, 2014). Based on the findings of this study, it can be inferred that customers place a significant emphasis on the communication of potential product complements, substitutes and forgotten products. In addition, the presence of cordiality and professionalism are critical factors in determining their continued patronage of a brand's services. Furthermore, the study indicates that a majority of individuals, when prompted to recall visual elements, notably recall brand name and colour among others, therefore it is worth to invest on identity elements on the Personal Shopper's outfit as well as his car.

Date of Award	6 Jul 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Sofia Pinto (Supervisor)