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Vikt­or Smith

Associate Professor

Subjects
Co-creation Consumer behaviour Communication Language Green transition Europe

Primary research areas

Mul­timod­al Per­suas­ive Com­mu­nic­a­tion
Nam­ing & Fram­ing
Product in­nov­a­tion for green trans­ition, re­spons­ible product-to-con­sumer com­mu­nic­a­tion, fair product la­belling
Sus­tain­able tour­ism de­vel­op­ment in peri­pher­al areas
Low- versus high-budget route place brand­ing
Cog­nit­ive Lan­guage The­ory, Psy­cho­lin­guist­ics, De­cision-Mak­ing The­ory
The Law-Lan­guage In­ter­face

My fo­cus is the power of words and mul­timod­al com­mu­nic­a­tion - and how to handle it re­spons­ibly to the be­ne­fit of busi­ness and so­ci­ety

I investigate the communicative and psychological mechanisms through which human language combined with other communicative tools (pictures, colours, sound, shapes, flavours) not only reflect but shape the world around us and the way we see and deal with it. 

Over the years, I have pursued this research interests in cross-disciplinary theoretical work and in goal-driven endeavours ranging from the clash and convergence of legal cultures to fair marketing and presentation of innovative products (particularly food and drink), and sustainable tourism development. 

Unlike more media-strategy and management-oriented approaches to communication, my focus covers communicative interaction observed in real time, for example, during physical/online shopping or when visiting a tourist sight. To this end, I draw on both qualitative and quantitative methods, including experimental work supported by psychophysiological metrics, particularly eye-tracking, using MSC’s cognitive experimental facility Cog Lab.Theoretically, I focus on further developing an integrated four-layered model for better understanding and handling goal-driven naming and framing processes. 

Recent research projects

SECre­Tour: Sus­tain­able, en­ga­ging and cre­at­ive tour­ism (Ho­ri­zon Europe)

The pro­ject aims at em­power­ing her­it­age com­munit­ies in peri­pher­al and rur­al areas across Europe through tour­ism de­vel­op­ment based on in­nov­at­ive busi­ness mod­els and par­ti­cip­at­ory iden­tity-build­ing.

My con­tri­bu­tions in­clude the de­vel­op­ment of new tools for sup­port­ing the nam­ing and mul­timod­al fram­ing of her­it­age com­munit­ies and at­trac­tions through im­me­di­ate cues in sur­round­ing phys­ic­al and di­git­al se­mi­ot­ic land­scapes, tak­ing a low-budget route of place-brand de­vel­op­ment.
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IN­CULTUM. Vis­it­ing the Mar­gins: In­nov­at­ive Cul­tur­al Tour­ism in European Peri­pher­ies

The Ho­ri­zon 2020 pro­ject IN­CULTUM (2021-2024) war a three-year EU-fun­ded in­nov­a­tion ac­tion to ex­plore and un­lock the po­ten­tial of un­der­rated des­tin­a­tions in European peri­pher­ies. Key as­pects of this work are cur­rently car­ried for­ward in the Ho­ri­zon Europe pro­ject SECre­Tour (2024–2027), with fur­ther pi­lot cases ad­ded and an en­hanced fo­cus on on-site prac­tic­al im­ple­ment­a­tion.
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Pro­jects in Pipeline

A ma­jor re­search ini­ti­at­ive is presently in pre­par­a­tion with the work­ing title “REALLY NEW – User-In­volving Nam­ing and Fram­ing of To­mor­row's Plant-Based Foods”. The aim is to sup­port the green trans­ition in Dan­ish so­ci­ety by strength­en­ing the re­search basis for nam­ing and fram­ing plant-based al­tern­at­ives to tra­di­tion­ally meat-based food products in a way that goes bey­ond present­ing them as sheer “meat sub­sti­tutes”, e.g. Chili-sin-Carne and Bey­ond Bur­ger. We see that as a pre­con­di­tion for achiev­ing a long-last­ing and sus­tain­able im­pact on the ha­bitu­al con­sump­tion pat­terns of the rising gen­er­a­tions.

Pre­vi­ous Pro­jects

I have been the lead­er of and/or a par­ti­cipant in sev­er­al lar­ger and smal­ler col­lab­or­at­ive pro­jects. That in­cludes the stra­tegic re­search al­li­ance ‘Spin or Fair Speak – When Foods Talk’ fun­ded by the Dan­ish Coun­cil for Stra­tegic Re­search (now merged with In­nov­a­tion Fund Den­mark) and three fol­low-up pro­jects (2007-2016). The aim was to cre­ate hands-on tools for as­sess­ing the fair­ness and po­ten­tial mis­lead­ing­ness of con­crete food la­belling solu­tions on em­pir­ic­al grounds. The work was led by the Fair­Speak Group at CBS and car­ried out in col­lab­or­a­tion with CBS, DTU, KU, and Lund Uni­ver­sity as well as a group of busi­ness and NGO part­ners and the Dan­ish food au­thor­it­ies (the Dan­ish Veter­in­ary and Food Ad­min­is­tra­tion). Read more about the Fair­Speak Group's con­tin­ued work and re­cently pub­lished new res­ults here.
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Links

Scand­inavi­an As­so­ci­ation for Lan­guage & Cog­ni­tion
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The In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­ation for Cog­nit­ive Se­mi­ot­ics
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The European Re­gion­al Sci­ence As­so­ci­ation (ERSA)
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CBS Ag­ri­food Net­work un­der Green Trans­ition at CBS
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