As an expert in shopper research and a true believer of implicit measures, haystack had to be present at the Brain Shopper Conference in Amsterdam last week. We are always looking for a better understanding of human needs and human decision making as it gives us the opportunity to stay ahead in today’s challenging retail landscape. As well neuro-scientists as shopper marketers shared relevant consumer insights from neuroscience, applied in shopper marketing, retail and branding.
Wim Hamaekers, Managing Partner at haystack, and Iris Cremers, European Shopper Insight Manager at Unilever, shared their learnings about packaging research in general but more specific how neuro-tools like eye-tracking, EEG, GSR and implicit associations can give you a deeper understanding of your packaging. Packages are always tested in a competitive context and for this research a real shopping journey was created to lead the shopper through the supermarket towards the tested shelf. However, after the gaming world, virtual reality also made his introduction in the research world. A virtual shopper journey where respondents can walk, almost real-life, through a supermarket and do their purchases. For the moment, at haystack, we are looking if this virtual reality can add value in packaging and POSM research.
Furthermore, a very interesting lecture of David Forbes, who created a simple, easy to understand and easy to apply model of human motivation, a kind of 'periodic table' of motives, that identifies, organizes and explains the nine core motivations. This matrix contains all we need to know about why consumers do the things they do the way they do them. We are reading his book ‘The science of Why’ for the moment to see how we can integrate this in shopper and consumer research.
Furthermore, Lluis Martinez Ribes remembered us at the fact that the end goal for a product is to be part of consumer’s life. Make their life easier like Carrefour connected kitchen by maintaining the family harmony (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEW0skyNsqE).
Want to know more about all the interesting findings we gathered on the conference, just give us a call!
Blog by Nele Van der Elst
