In a changing world, is everything still the same?

The French have a lovely saying, and I paraphrase here, “For all that it changes, it is still the same old song”. 

A time of unprecedented change 

We are going through an amazing period in time as we grapple with the pace of change in technology, the introduction of AI into our lives, changing societal views of social media, and political change through reaction to immigration, all on top of the once-in-a-hundred-year's event of the Covid pandemic.

And yet, despite all that, one gets the sense that we are still working on assumptions about shopper behavior, attention, the way brands get in front of customers and the choices available to them that held true over 20 years ago. 

Is it time for retail and FMCG to re-evaluate those assumptions? 

From early eye tracking to modern solutions 

From the early 2000s, when eye tracking could be taken out of the lab and into the real-world, there was a real energy about in-store research due to the commercial availability of eye tracking glasses. We could finally understand the "say / do" gap by understanding what people saw and did, by looking through the eyes of consumers. Initially, the equipment was cumbersome, with respondents often carrying a laptop in a backpack to support the recording and an eye tracker mounted on a cycle helmet.

Thankfully the technology has improved enormously. Today, wearable eye trackers look like prescription glasses, with compact recording units or phones doing the job that once required far more equipment. There are now solutions such as Tobii
Glasses X that do not require participant calibration, and remote live viewing means stakeholders can be much more present in the research without having to stand beside the participant in store. 

The rise of modelled attention 

The FMCG industry has also benefited from the development of algorithms that can predict visual saliency and where initial attention is likely to go. These solutions can be quick, efficient, and affordable, making them a useful way to assess the potential visual impact of creativity or design. 

But that is not the same as understanding a real shopper journey. A model does not know the shopper’s brand preferences, their shopping mission, the occasion they are buying for, what has happened earlier in the journey, or the many other factors that influence what they notice and what they ultimately choose. 

Yet I get the sense that we are not making the most of the potential for eye tracking. We are still relying on studies done long ago and assuming the findings continue to hold true, despite the huge changes we have been through and the increasing demands on our attention, from the constant pull of our mobiles to the advent of Retail Media in store. At the same time, real-world eye tracking itself has become easier to use, more accessible and more affordable, with remote viewing making it much easier for stakeholders to take part in the research. 

Why real behavior still matters 

Predictive attention models are great: quick, efficient, and affordable. Yet a static image will not capture the changing light in a store, the movement of the shopper, staff, other shoppers and a wide variety of other environmental distractions, or the dynamism of Retail Media screens all vying for our attention.

And, of course, you cannot speak to a predictive model afterwards to understand the drivers and the “why” behind what happened. But prediction does not have to stand alone. Tools such as Tobii Sticky can help validate those predictions with real people, recruited to relevant demographic and preference profiles, providing actual measures of visual attention by allowing data collection via webcam eye tracking without the need to bring participants to a central testing facility.

And when you need to understand what happens in the real world, wearable eye tracking takes you into the shopping environment itself.  

The same challenges still exist 

I recently ran a workshop with a client and found that many familiar challenges remain: 

• Opportunities to improve in-store execution 

• Gaps in on-shelf availability 

• The need for closer collaboration between suppliers and retailers 

But the key questions are: 

Which activity should we address first? 

Where should we focus? 

When did we last test the assumptions behind those decisions? 

It feels like the right moment to reassess before we continue acting on outdated assumptions. I think it is time to make sure that what we believe about shoppers is still true. We all know what happens when we assume. 

Looking through consumers’ eyes again 

This is where real-world eye tracking still has such an important role to play. It is not a generic model of where people might look; it allows us to work with our actual users, customers, or target shoppers and understand what they really see and do. 

So much has changed in how we experience the world, and especially how we shop. Attention is under more pressure, and shoppers are exposed to products and brands through more channels than ever before. The decision process can start well before someone enters a store, and what happens at the shelf is only one part of that journey. 

We can learn a lot from modelled EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale) data, but it does not capture how people shop, only what they buy. We do not see what was left on the shelf, what was considered and then discarded, how a product found its way into the basket, or the drivers behind the final selection. 

Perhaps it is time to ask: 

When did we last truly look through the eyes of our consumers? 

When did we validate our understanding of the “say / do” gap? 

Behavior evolves. Resting important brand, category and activation decisions on research and assumptions that may be many years old carries a risk, particularly when the world around the shopper has changed so much. 

As John le Carré put it... 

So, I think it is a good time to make sure we are not building our activation plans on assumptions that held true long ago. With real-world eye tracking now so much more accessible, why risk your brand, your sales or your investment without truly seeing through the eyes of your customers?

Get out there and see what people are seeing.