Eye-tracking beer goggles monitor habits

Tim Froggett, senior lecturer in marketing at Anglia Ruskin University, developed the eye-tracking “beer goggles” to examine how a person makes a decision at the pumps in order to determine the influence of differently designed clips.

Frogget teamed up with John Dearne, licensee of the Tram Depot pub near Cambridge, to test the tech asking 20 volunteers to wear the goggles and then make their selection from six pump clips on display at the bar. All the volunteers were non-beer drinkers and were not familiar with any of the brands.

A guest beer, Artigianale byEverards, received the most attention with a total of 1,485 fixations – glimpses measured using the eye-tracking technology. This beer was chosen by all but one member of the group.

The pub’s own beer Tram Light, which is actually one of their best-sellers, received only 817 fixations, suggesting that when drinkers don’t know the brands on offer, pump clip plays an important role.
Frogget said: “What’s interesting about this research is that we were able to eliminate brand memory and study purely attention-based influences.”

While visual attention and consumer choice were almost perfectly aligned, further research would be needed in order to find out what grabs people’s attention.

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 pump clips and, ultimately, help brewers. Ale brewers face stiff competition and if they are keen to get new drinkers interested, they need to think carefully about the part the pump clip plays.”

Heat map of pump clips at the Tram Depot pub