Since advertising began, marketers have been striving to quantify how “eye-catching” their advertisements are. After all, consumers see thousands of them every day – TV and radio spots, billboards on the highway, the sides of buses and the tops of taxis. Which of those do they see, and which do they tune out? The marketing research future has arrived with eye tracking for advertisers. Learn more about how this exciting new technology can benefit your next marketing research initiative. New Perspectives is proud to offer the latest in focus group and marketing research technology.
Even research groups have not historically been able to provide a complete answer. A researcher can show a subject an ad and ask how noticeable it was, what exactly drew the subject’s attention, and whether it would persuade the subject to buy the product. However, studies have shown that the answers may not give a complete picture. A customer might say that a billboard caught their eye in the calm, controlled environment of the lab but never give it a second glance when driving past it at 60 mph. There is always a potential for error when someone is asked to report their reaction after the fact, or to describe verbally their level of interest.
Eye tracking for advertisers software was originally developed by a company called Tobii for video games, the idea being that gamers could interact with objects in the game in the same way they interacted with real-life objects. It went over poorly for videos games, but not before advertisers had picked up on the idea. A computer engineer has developed a Linux open-source software that allows anyone to construct their eye tracking for advertisers device. The device looks like a Google Glass, with one camera pointing outward and another back at the wearer’s eye. It can construct an image of an ad or webpage superimposed on a heat map that shows where on the page the reader’s eye looked most.
The software is still in its infancy, but advertisers are hopeful that it may usher in a new age of targeted advertising. Please contact the marketing research consultants at New Perspectives if you’d like to learn about eye tracking for advertisers or for help with your next marketing research campaign.