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Gorilla in your midst...shopping behaviour with attitude

On Thursday night we were treated to a wonderfully interesting and thought provoking insight to the real world of shopping. Siemon Scammell-Katz, founder and Chairman of ID Magasin, introduced us to the way the retail industry operates its stores and the impact shoppers behavioural research is having on the market place.

Through world leading businesses like Tesco & ASDA, he illustrated the factors influencing the design of superstore layout and product placement. He also engaged us in the way product giants like Proctor & Gamble and Coco Cola design and promote their products through the power of brand & brand management.

It was a voyage of discovery for the entire audience. Siemon raised the profile of the way the industry operates in what we have all come to accept as logical and well thought out techniques and processes, only to have these views dashed with startling evidence, on the next slide and video clip, of what really goes on in shoppers minds and their consequential behaviour.

Traditional research methods give only partial insight into shopper behaviour. As much as 99% of the visual stimuli that assail the shopper in a supermarket are screened out by the brain. About 80% of shopping decisions are made sub-consciously. Conventional techniques rely on consumers post rational views and ability to describe the shopping decisions they make.

Siemon uses a set of behavioural interview techniques combined with eye tracking and eye mark technology, which his company has developed, to expose real decision making behaviour.

Through video clips and anecdotes, he revealed some astounding behaviour about how shoppers screen out the promotional material (TV, advertising etc.) that these major companies spend more than 70% of their marketing campaign budgets on - the above the line spend. A further 29% of the budget is spent on the in-store promotional signage & presentation - below the line spend - which is equally ineffective. This leaves just 1% to spend on understanding what affects shoppers behaviour in the store itself - the area of real potential value. This is even more astounding when you realise that the scale of the budgets this whole area consumes world-wide is measured in tens of billions of dollars each year….but has very little real impact.

Siemon used a very memorable way of illustrating just how poor our visual awareness is if we are given a selective attention task:

Click on: viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html

Count the number of times the white team bounce the ball !

He said that he presented at a large conference and out of an audience of more than 2000 people, less than 10% noticed anything different !

He emphasised just how much the industry had got it wrong when he announced that 92% of new product development fails within one year. He showed various models of store layout used in the industry and concluded that the way stores are laid out bears very little relationship to the way people shop.

Most people assume that the best area for product placement is at eye level…wrong. The natural gaze is in the range 15 to 30 degress downward. So goods placed above this level get very little attention.

Similarly, conventional wisdom suggests that products placed at the beginning or end of an aisle are prime locations…wrong. Shoppers don't notice much until after about three metres and are already leaving the aisle well before the end of the shelves & displays. The better location is in the middle section of the aisle.

He also showed various illustrations of point of sale and ceiling hung advertising and promotion: "…so who wants to compete up here ? This is all largely ignored by shoppers and has no influence on the purchase decision. It costs a fortune to design & produce."

He illustrated the power of brand with subliminal images of three well known brands (Coca Cola, McDonald's & Marlborough Light) and asked the audience to name them. There was a 100% accurate response. This illustrates the point very well as each image was shown for only a fraction of a second…it was impossible to read the labels…people were responding to well known shapes, logos and colours. Get this wrong and the impact is devastating. Again illustrated by anecdotes from Gordon's Gin and Pepsi Cola who lost millions of pounds when they changed familiar brand identity.

Finally, Siemon illustrated the way he works in knowledge partnerships with his clients in a highly collaborative and interactive business model.

There was a very lively question and answer session testing the myths & perceptions of shoppers behaviour. Siemon's presentation was very well received by the audience and stimulated a lot of discussion evidenced by the highly interactive networking afterwards.

More info: Go to this page to download Siemon's presentation.

Posted: 25th Sep 2006