You can believe your eyes

What is eye tracking good for? The answer is simple: it can be used when we would like to grab the attention of the target group visually and the product can be seen with the naked eye.

A joint project from NRC and Maspex Olympos shows us what kind of information we can get if would like to test the packaging of our product. Eye tracking is an excellent method because one’s eye movements are only partially conscious and controlled, therefore with the help of eye tracking we can gather lots of credible information and data about how shoppers react to visual materials, be it still, moving or interactive. To analyse the data collected this way we need further information from test participants: we have to collect these with interviews, discussion, questionnaires and spontaneous remembering. By comparing this qualitative information with eye tracking data, we can make the picture complete. The project of Maspex Olympos and NRC tried to find out to what extent the selected Apenta packagings are able to convey the manufacturer’s message to consumers. On the sour cherry-flavoured Apenta promotional messages were placed, while the main messages of Apenta Duo were being sugar-free and containing two types of fruit. Tobi60 eye trackers were distributed to 32 participants who saw the products in a random order for 15 seconds. Only 3 seconds were enough for participants to read all the important sections of the products’ labels. In both cases the colour photo of the fruit attracted participants’ gaze, but with DUO people spent more time looking at it because they saw more fruits and less other content. With the sour cherry Apenta contrasting text colours and central placement were successful. As a conclusion we can say that Apenta Duo successfully communicated its sugar-free characteristic, the placement and the vivid colours attracted consumer attention rapidly and for an adequate amount of time. As for the Apenta sour cherry promotional label, the message was less successful: although test participants swiftly sensed the opportunity of the prize game, the details of the game proved to be less appealing than other product information.