Do You See What I See? Eye-tracking Research Shows Where Consumers Look in Holiday Plant Displays

Eye-tracking hardware, adapted from the medical field, is a relatively new and helpful instrument in consumer research.  The technology gives researchers more measurable and precise knowledge of what consumers are looking at when they view images.  By tracking saccades (eye movement) and fixations (eye movement stops), researchers are able to tell at what consumers are looking and for how long.  The number of eye fixations, not duration, is positively related to the amount of information a consumer is able to extract from an advertisement (Wedel and Pieters 2000).  The purpose of our study was to evaluate consumer perceptions of holiday displays. We used Tobii (Danderyd, Sweeden) eye-tracking glasses in November, 2011, to evaluate three displays containing holiday plants in one Detroit, MI, area garden center.  Twenty-seven consumers, after signing an informed consent form, were paid a $10 incentive to wear the glasses and viewed displays. Consumers rated these on attractiveness and how likely they would be to purchase an item from that display (1 = not at all likely, 10 = extremely likely).  Areas of interest were drawn on the display images to evaluate where more of their gaze occurred:  top v. bottom and left v. right.  Areas of interest are geometric shapes which can be drawn on the image from which gaze data can be analyzed.  Results showed that consumers looked more (fixation duration and count) at the bottom of the displays compared to the top and looked more to the right compared to the left.  These results can help retail professionals more effectively place information (e.g. price or content) to where consumers’ gaze naturally migrates.