Through the use of a virtual reality headset, the Massey University-developed digital programme allows a user to be immersed in a store experience replicates the real-world experience.
Researchers at Massey University have developed a tech product that aims to help businesses answer the question of what consumers really want.
Through the use of a virtual-reality headset, the digital programme allows a user to be immersed in a store experience which replicates the real-world experience.
Once the user steps inside this digital world, researchers can observe what catches the user's eye, what they were most interested in and how they moved around the store.
This initiative is the brainchild of PhD researcher Alexander Schnack, who felt frustrated by the lack of a reliable way of measuring consumer responses to product packaging.
Schnack found that much of the research associated with product packaging was over-reliant on surveys, which can deliver inaccurate results due to something called social-desirability bias.
"If you use a survey, people don't always give you the real answer," Schnack explained to the Herald. "They give you answers they expect you want to hear and this gave me serious doubts about whether the survey methodology was the best way to go."
In addition, survey respondents also post-rationalise their decisions, offering up reasons that seem logical when their choice was, perhaps, made on a whim.
Schnack needed a way to observe consumers rather than having them tell him what they liked or didn't like. The problem, however, is that observational studies can become very expensive – particularly when it involves comparisons between different packaging.
PhD candidate Alexander Schnack is hoping to change the way find out what consumers want. Photo/Supplied.
"I wanted to do an experiment to observe actual behavioural responses to changes in package design," said Schnack.
At first, Schnack thought about setting up the experiment in the real world by working with retailers to set up the shelves with the various product offers but this required a substantial amount of hands-on work – and money.
As he was grappling with this, Schnack somewhat serendipitously noticed the release of the latest virtual-reality headset and thought that the answer to his conundrum might lie in the tech.
"I thought it would be awesome to have a shopping simulation in which we could manipulate the product design and store layout, run people through the simulation and then look at how they are responding to the stuff."
He teamed up with a programmer, who built the digital interface on an existing game platform and brought it all to life.
The interface allows the user to walk into a customisable store and then observe and interact with items on display. The tech has the ability to track eye and hand movement and create heat maps based on what consumers are looking at during their virtual-reality experience. This, in turn, gives the observer an objective glimpse at what actually captures the consumer's attention.
A researcher at Massey University has found a novel way to look into the consumer's mind. Photo/Supplied.
Schnack says the tech could have a range of practical uses, including the ability of marketers to test product design variations before paying for them to be produced.
He sees the affordability of the initiative as a major advantage in that it could one day lower the cost of conducting behavioural studies of consumers.
Schnack's supervisor, Professor Malcolm Wright, saw its potential immediately, which led to the system being licensed by Massey University spinout company Consumer Insights.
"We have already run several successful studies and we are now working with clients both nationally and internationally," Wright said. "Our business model scales up nicely, it's internationally portable, and there are many related VR services that we could launch. So, we hope to give VR shopper research a really strong push, and just see how far we can take it."
