There is no substitute for real eye tracking, despite the proliferation of imprecise techniques such as field-of-vision recording hawked by me-too organisations desperate to jump on the shopper bandwagon. But in the past, the more advanced methodology has come with a higher price tag.

Now, by combining eye square software with its own, TNS Magasin is able to dramatically reduce the cost of its eye tracking research without compromising quality. The web-based software vastly speeds up the process whereby data is extracted from the digital records, previously achieved by painstaking human analysis, with no lack of accuracy.

Real eye tracking is superior because it enables every single eye fixation of every individual shopper to be recorded and analysed. Human eyes move constantly, with tiny movements outside conscious control. These are punctuated by fixations, during which the eyes stop to focus: these are typically between 100 – 600 milliseconds in duration. The brain only begins to process visual information during a fixation.

Because it cannot detect these fixations, field-of-vision recording merely shows what was in front of shoppers. Eye tracking by contrast measures in minute detail what each shopper actually notices and which elements are being used at what stage in the decision-making process. This is the key to understanding how shoppers make decisions and the visual stimuli that prompt those decisions.

Research of this more thorough kind can determine ROI on all POS materials by establishing the exact relationship between cost and effectiveness of individual elements of the in-store display, identifying their role in category navigation, brand value building and brand conversion.

Years of using this more sophisticated approach, combined with nearly two decades of in-store experience and unparalleled authority in shopper, enable TNS Magasin not only to deliver superior insight to its clients but to generate strategies and tactics to drive their businesses forward.

Says TNS Magasin Founder Siemon Scamell-Katz: ‘We’ve been eye tracking for nearly 20 years now – it was one of our “first in the world” achievements back in our early days. It is frustrating but when it comes to eye tracking, every other method is a compromise. We will never go down that route but now this technological advance means that we can offer our clients the unequalled benefits of real eye tracking at a cost comparable to inferior methods.’

TNS Magasin has also raised the bar by combining EEG (electroencephalography) from EmSense with real eye tracking.  A project has just been completed for Footlocker: the results reveal the power of this groundbreaking approach and the potential of bio-sensory research.

Siemon explains: ‘The combination of these two powerful methodologies is fundamentally challenging many received ideas about in-store decision-making.  At last we are able to gain insight into responses to the visual stimuli that the shopper actually looks at, as well as prefrontal cortex responses.  This enables us to gauge the relative roles of emotion and cognition at each and every stage of the shopping journey to understand, literally, what is going on in shoppers’ minds.

‘Over the past few years we have looked at many bio-sensory techniques some of which work in FMCG and others, such as GSR, that don’t’. The company is now also working with fMRI techniques to understand more about the role of memory in store.

For further information contact TNS Magasin on +44 (0)01858 461461 or visit www.tns-magasin.com