A new recruit joined Prof. Baumgarth’s team yesterday – the humanoid robot, “Pepper”. Through the acquisition of extensive funds from the Institute for Applied Research (IFAF), our B*lab at the HWR can be significantly expanded once again. The humanoid robot Pepper of the Japanese company Softbank represents a flexibly applicable humanoid robot in the field of social robotics. The robot, which weighs around 30 kilos and is 1.30 m tall, can communicate and interact with consumers through its visual and tactile sensors, its facial expression and emotion recognition as well as its voice output and display. Over the next few months, we will familiarize ourselves with the robot and the software solution provided by the German company Entrance. Starting in early 2021, we also plan to use Pepper in research projects on humanoid brand-touchpoints.