Consumer response to lifestyle messages

Professor Hans van Trijp holds the full chair in Marketing and Consumer Behaviour at Wageningen University in the Netherlands since 2001. He also holds a part time (one day a week) affiliation at Unilever Research and Development in Vlaardingen, The Netherlands as senior scientists in consumer behaviour.

Hans van Trijp is scientific director within the Dutch open innovation program Transforum which aims to stimulate a more sustainable development of Dutch agro-food industry. His scientific area within Transforum specifically focuses on: “mobilising consumer demand for sustinable development”. Hans van Trijp is a member of the Operational Committee of the European Technology Food for Life and the chair of the Food and Consumer workgroup therein. He has been actively involved in the formulation of the Strategic Stakeholder Research Agenda for Food.

He has been an external advisor to CIAA in the design and execution of the research on the evaluation of Healthy Lifestyle campaigns to identify key barriers to children undertaking healthy eating and active behaviour. This research was conducted as part of the EU Platform for Action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health.

His research interests focus both in the areas of marketing and of consumer behaivour and particularly the interrelationships between the two. More recently much of his research has focused on consumer acceptance of new food technologies (such as plant genomics and nutrigenomics), understanding consumer confidence in the safety of food, consumer understanding and acceptance of nutrition and health claims, and on new methodologies for better understanding consumer behaviour.

In marketing his prime research activities lies in the field of effective segmentation methodologies and supply chain design based on consumer preferences.