A marketing expert at Anglia Ruskin University is using eye-tracking ‘beer goggles’ to examine how we make our decisions in the pub.
Tim Froggett, senior lecturer in marketing at Anglia Ruskin, has teamed up with John Dearne, licensee of the Tram Depot pub, near East Road in Cambridge, to discover which pumpclips work best.
The ‘beer goggles’ in use
John said: “Tim explained that we could use eye-tracking technology to understand how pumpclips attract the attention of drinkers and I was keen to put this to the test with the pumpclip I designed for Tram Light, our house beer.”
The study involved 20 volunteers who wore the eye-tracking beer goggles and made a selection from the six pumpclips on display at the bar. All the volunteers were non-beer drinkers and not familiar with any of the brands.
It was one of the guest beers — Artigianale by Everards — which received most attention, with a total of 1,485 fixations (glimpses measured using the eye-tracking technology) and was chosen by all but one person.
The pub’s own beer, Tram Light, which is actually one of its best-sellers, received only 817 fixations. This suggests that when drinkers don’t know the brands on offer, the pumpclip plays an important role.
Tim said: “What’s interesting about this research is that we were able to eliminate brand memory and study purely attention-based influences.”
The conclusion is that visual attention and consumer choice are almost perfectly correlated, although more research is needed to find out exactly what it is that grabs people’s attention.
The study is in its early stages but Tim, a real ale fan, is keen to take it further. He added: “Although there has been quite a lot of eye-tracking research in the field of marketing, hardly any has been done in real-life situations, such as the pub. We would really like to apply some science to the art of pumpclips and, ultimately, help brewers.”
John added: “Ale brewers face stiff competition and if they are keen to get new drinkers interested, they need to think carefully about the part the pumpclip plays.”
