Paving the future of consumer brands

At Accenture, we have a strong commitment to helping our clients innovate and to create an impact on business and society. We set up innovative projects to improve how the world works and lives, at a global scale. We bring expertise and experience together to develop innovative solutions tailored to the client, aside from their size, type or location. Find out the type of work and projects you can do with a career at Accenture. Continue to read to find out what we created with Kellogg's, a multinational food manufacturing company.

Kellogg’s needed in-depth knowledge of consumer purchasing behavior - as part of a product launch - enabling them to better determine product placement, assortment, and promotion in-store. Together with Qualcomm, we developed a VR solution with embedded eye-tracking. This project would not only provide an effective solution but also show a glimpse at a new reality for brands, retailers and consumer testing - combining the latest tech to get better results.

  • Making VR merchandising a reality

A twinkle in the eye

What is the just-right place for a product on a retailer’s shelf? And what type of product should be displayed to consumers? What marketing strategy should be used in-store? Determining the perfect placement for their products is key for consumer brands and retailers, whom invest considerable time and money seeking the answer to these questions. Recognizing the need to act, Kellogg’s reached out to Accenture and Qualcomm to develop a solution that would bring about these answers.

The solution? An immersive VR experience based on Kellogg’s real-world need to test the shelf placement, assortment and pricing strategy for their “Pop-Tarts Bites” launch. We designed a scenario that showcased consumers in a full-scale, simulated store, enabling them to move through the space, shop, pick up products and place them in carts. In the meantime, embedded eye-tracking provides info of what they are looking at, for how long - providing deeper insights into purchasing behavior. Additionally, Kellogg’s was enabled to alter several variables of the set up like placement and assortment and quickly measure their impact on purchasing outcomes.

Adding value with VR

Research and experience unveiled that shopping in virtual reality closely reflects real-world behavior, hence the decision to make use of the technology for testing. Additionally, our own experience shows that there are several ways in which VR merchandising could pay off for consumer brands:

Expand reach of testing

Geographically scattered consumers can be invited to use a mobile VR headset for product testing in their homes, at stores, and during product roadshows.

Improve experience in a branded environment

Shoppers walk through a realistic virtual store model, looking at shelves, picking up and buying products directly into their carts.

Increase dataset for analytics

You can gather additional data through eye-tracking technology, in a way that does not interrupt the shopping experience.

Decrease of costs, while improving flexibility

The VR-based solution makes it easy to test a variety of planogram combinations in a faster and more cost-effective manner, reaching a holistic conclusion for the product and the category.

“This approach provided multiple data outputs, which in turn, created a holistic solution that would drive success for both the category and product..”
Jenny McDaniels, Senior Manager Category Strategy, Kellogg’s

Higher learning

De resultaten van VR testen demonstreert dat er nieuwe innovatieve manieren zijn om kopers gedrag te analyseren, beter dan traditionele methodes.  De eye-tracking data toonde aan hoe de aanwezigheid van Kellogg’s nieuwe Pop-Tarts Bites de aandacht voor andere Kellogg’s producten beïnvloeden in het schap. Als de Pop-Tarts bites op een lager schap werden geplaatst, in plaats van een hoger schap, waar klanten gewend zijn om nieuwere producten te vinden, zou de verkoop van het nieuwe product met 18 percent dalen.

Alle winkeleigenaren kunnen de snelheid, schaal en kosten van hun marktresearch verminderen door eye-tracking en VR testing te implementeren. Net zoals Kellogg’s kunnen zij veel meer data generen omtrent koopgedrag om hun holistische merchandising strategie te perfectioneren.

  • VR Merchandising Solution with Eye Tracking

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If you had the chance, what kind of impact would you want to make? At Accenture, we do much more than ‘just’ business. Find out more about why Accenture is a great place to work or discover what else we do about Corporate Social Responsibility.