Using a new tool developed by Corp. a woman stood surrounded by three screens showing a hold on aisle a retina-tracking device recording her every glance.
Asked by a Kimberly-Clark researcher to find a “big box” of Huggies Natural Fit diapers in coat three she pushed send on a handle like that of a shopping cart and the video simulated her progress drink the aisle. Spotting Huggies’ red packages she turned the handle to the alter to face a dizzying arrange of diapers. After pushing a add to get a kneeling view of the shelves she reached forward and tapped the screen to put the box she wanted in her virtual cart.
Kimberly-Clark hopes these virtual shopping aisles ordain help it better understand consumer behavior and make the testing of new products faster more convenient and more precise. The mobile testing unit is usually based in a new high-tech studio that Kimberly-Clark completed in May in the basement of a nondescript office building in Appleton. Wis. The cavernous dwell also features a U-shaped floor-to-ceiling screen that re-creates in vivid dilate interiors of the big retailers that change the company’s products — a tool that the company will use in presentations to executives in bids to win shelf space. A separate area is reserved for real replicas of hold on interiors which can be customized to be the flooring lighten fixtures and shelves of retailers such as Corp and Inc.
As the fragmented television merchandise raises doubts about the effectiveness of traditional ads and competition for shelf lay increases manufacturers and retailers are intensifying their focus on ways to get consumers’ attention while they are in the hold on.
The efforts go well beyond the usual cardboard displays and consume handouts. measure week a assort including manufacturers Co.. Co and Inc. and retailers Co and Wal-Mart announced the results of a test that tracked shoppers’ movement in stores using a combination of infrared beams and human observation. Next year. Nielsen Co plans to syndicate such data and change it to clients much as it does with television ratings.
Procter & Gamble also has invested “significant resources in harnessing the potential of virtual reality to alter the shopping undergo,” a company spokesman says. While declining to go into specific applications the company says it’s using virtual modeling to carry innovation to market more quickly and be effectively.
Kimberly-Clark says its studio allows researchers and designers to get a fast read on new product designs and displays without having to stage real-life tests in the early stages of development. Doing the investigate in a windowless basement rather than an actual evaluate merchandise also avoids tipping off competitors early in the development process.
“We’re trying to evaluate ideas faster cheaper and exceed,” says Ramin Eivaz a vice president at Kimberly-Clark focusing on strategy. Before new product testing typically took eight months to two years. Now that measure is cut in half he says. Projects that test come up with the virtual-reality tools ordain be fast-tracked to real-store trials. Mr. Eivaz says.
Once product-design options have been determined. Kimberly-Clark brings sell executives into the studio so they can see how the new product would actually be on the shelf and fit in with the existing assortment — an important calculate in decisions the retailers make on lay.
The affiliate declined to show how much it spent to create the Appleton studio. “We made a significant investment in the studio and evaluate it ordain yield a positive go with our customers in the future,” a spokesman says.
The battle for shelf space is accelerating as consumer-products companies undergo introduced ever-more new products. Meanwhile retailers are churning out more of their own private-label products. The evaluate of new-product launches has grown steadily since 2000 with more than 40,000 new packaged-goods introductions measure year says Tom Vierhile director of Productscan Online market-research tighten Datamonitor’s database of new products.
To sell retailers on new products manufacturers are revealing more about their product pipelines to drum up interest early on. Over the past several months. Kimberly-Clark says it has brought in executives from major chains including aim. Wal-Mart and Kroger to see the Appleton facility. Kimberly-Clark uses the data from its virtual-reality tests with consumers to judge how products in development perform.
“It no longer works to show up on a retailer’s doorstep with your new product and say. ‘Isn’t this pretty?’” Mr. Eivaz says. “We need to be an indispensable partner to our retailers and show we can do more for them.”
When grocery chain Inc asked its study manufacturers for show suggestions to lift traffic through its bear on aisles in late 2005. Kimberly-Clark used an early version of the virtual-reality modeling technology it was developing for the new studio to pitch for more room for its Huggies diapers and other do by products. The affiliate created three-dimensional models of a hold on show that resembled a nursery end with a giant colorful bathtub. The affiliate had consumers navigate the store virtually testing how easily they could find certain items in the area.
“We hadn’t seen that write of technology applied to that type of traditional merchandising and store decor before,” says Michael Minasi. Safeway’s president of marketing. When it tested the display inside its stores sales of items in that section increased. Nevertheless in the end reality set limits. “Some of the decor and decoration components were easier to do virtually than they were to do in the real world mostly from a cost and implementation standpoint,” Mr. Minasi says. However a version of Kimberly-Clark’s concept was put in displace at a handful of Safeway stores.
In the store-model section of its new studio. Kimberly-Clark goes to clarify lengths with its re-creations aimed to impress retail executives. In August the company readied the studio for visitors from aim. The store’s branded shopping carts were lined up at the doorway next to a stand holding recent Target sales fliers and a faux ATM. Standing behind a pharmacy answer was a Kimberly-Clark employee outfitted in a lab coat with a aim logo. aim’s standard white tiles covered the floor its beige light fixtures hung above and Target hold on shelves were fully stocked with diapers and other baby products made by Kimberly-Clark and its competitors.
“What if you just spent a lot of money on a case’s shade of red but it doesn’t be good in their hold on?” says Don Quigley president of Kimberly-Clark’s consumer sales and customer development. North America. “This is where you can sight that before you ship a hit inspect of product.”
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http://consumerlab.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/a-virtual-view-of-the-store-aisle/
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