Conference Feature: Retail Therapy

Who says researchers have to slum it in budget locations till the recovery is secure? Our Features Editor Teresa Lynch reports from a retail research conference in a venue so sumptuous that the Chairman described it as 'the kind of place that doesn't normally let in people like us'.

Chairman Siemon Scammel-Katz (TNS Magasin) was addressing around 100 specialists (and a few interested others) in what we must learn to call 'Shopper'; at the Research Live Retail conference at the Sofitel St James in London last Wednesday.

Siemon's introduction involved a brief history of retail research including the quite surprising information that the first real shopper research was conducted by the Co-op in conjunction with Salford University as late as 1996.

The first speaker was a last minute stand-in, Cristina de Balanzó Bono (TNS UK) who gave us a synopsis of developments in Neuroscience to date. This was fascinating theoretical stuff, at one point comparing a Cartesian understanding of the decision making parts of the brain with one proposed by Damásio, which set the scene for later papers of a more practical nature. This was followed by a panel discussion on 'Gain(ing) customer insights by mapping the shopper's journey'.

By 10.30 we were back to the original programme and a highly engaging and pragmatic paper by Graeme Lawrence (Virtual Surveys) and Frances Williams (Next) on how to assess your brand's foray into online communities. As well as making us aware of the huge numbers involved (the Internet is a bit like that) we found out that some big companies cannot make this social media thing work: apparently 'Oil & Water = Walmart & FaceBook'. The take home from this was 'Don't enter the space without a strategic plan in place'.

The next paper by Dr David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International (dubbed the 'father of neuromarketing') and Ian Addie (Nunwood) was very much in two parts, the former speaker giving us very detailed information about the human brain and the latter talking about customer behaviour in retail environments. This paper had a lot in common with the next one on customer satisfaction experiences by Lauren Cody (McDonald's) and Roy Langmaid (Promise) in both cases, although the individual parts were informative, there seemed to be a disconnect between the thoroughness/innovation of the science and the slightly less groundbreaking interaction with the shopper. Perhaps this is because, as Lauren said, 'The customer is looking for evolution not revolution'.

Nathan Bartlett of Ipsos MORI gave us a brisk run through 'Exploiting eye-tracking research insights to drive in-store impulse purchasing' and it was time for lunch. Those of us who had been at the recent conference in the Park Plaza Riverbank approached luncheon with a heavy heart. Imagine our delight when we were greeted by a display of goodies which the delegate next to me described as 'pure theatre'. The quality of the meal perhaps explains the great appetite within the Research staff to use this venue in the future.

After lunch we had Anna Cliffe and Laura Morris (both of Brahm) who gave us some good practical advice on using Google metrics, as a benchmark for buying trends and managed to mention, as the chairman pointed out, 'the words Leeds and heatwave in the same sentence'.

Then Chris Rourke of User Vision gave us the only paper of the day which concentrated solely on the use of eye-tracking and the online shopper and then we had tea (pictured).

After tea we had a quick game of musical chairs to shake us out of the lethargy induced by the over consumption of carbohydrates and straight into a paper by Fiona Blades of MESH on their proprietary, real-time emotional response system. On a topical note she also gave us some feedback on work they are doing recording members of the public's exposure to political brands.

The concluding panel discussion which included James Wood (Nunwood), Danielle Pinnington (Shoppercentric) and Chris Connor (SABMiller) mulled over the merits of new techniques versus old favourites and whether it is better with new clients to start small or go in with big radical research.

So, a day well spent inside the mind of the shopper and an exciting new venue discovered.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.