Accenture, Qualcomm, and Kellogg develop a VR merchandising solution to optimize branding and sales concepts. The solution demonstrates the commercial value of VR and tested sales of Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts Bites by 18 percent.
Accenture, Qualcomm Technologies and Kellogg have collaborated to develop and launch a VR solution that integrates eye-tracking technologies into mobile VR headsets. This enables brand manufacturers and retailers to place the collection of important consumer data and market research on a more stable basis.
Accenture’s Extended Reality department developed the VR merchandising solution. It uses a Qualcomm headset reference design based on the Snapdragon 845 mobile VR platform. The system has integrated eye tracking in combination with the mixed reality software InContext and the possibility of data analysis of the eye-tracking by Cognitive3D. It puts users in a life-size, simulated supermarket, where they can move through rows of shelves, select, remove and place products in the cart. The direction and duration of gaze are recorded, and the reason for focusing is read from the data.
The mobile solution enables companies to reach geographically dispersed participants and carry out market research faster, more cost-effectively and on a larger scale. It was tested in collaboration with Kellogg at the Pop-Tarts Bites product launch. Mobile eye-tracking provided more detailed behavioral data than traditional solutions that typically rely on online surveys. The data obtained in this way even led to completely different conclusions than conventional methods. While traditional testing suggested placement at the top of the shelf, where shoppers expected new products, the VR solution suggested the bottom bracket as the optimal placement. With this knowledge, sales in the test increased by 18 percent.
The developers see their solution as an important step towards better sales promotion in the retail trade. Brand manufacturers spend a lot of time, money and manual labor to determine the optimal product placement and arrangement on the supermarket shelves and find the ideal price point. However, these efforts are often thwarted by the poor depth and quality of the data. This is where the VR system comes in, which provides more detailed data and at the same time streamlines sales promotion and reduces costs through:
Expansion of the test environment to various locations: Companies can invite consumers who live far away to use the mobile VR headsets at home, in the shop or on roadshows for product tests.
Enhanced experiences in branded environments: Shoppers can virtually walk through realistic stores, peruse the shelves, pick out and examine products, and add their selections to the shopping cart.
Larger datasets for analysis: Companies can gain data from eye-tracking in the shopping process without disturbing the buyer. You get detailed insights into actual customer behavior and find out, for example, which products attract attention, what catches the eye longer or what is looked at first.
Decreasing costs with increased flexibility: The VR solution simplifies the testing of many designs and placements in a cost-effective manner. In minutes, manufacturers and retailers can change store and shelf layouts in the VR environment, swap out merchandise and play through pricing options to optimize their operations.