Procter & Gamble partners Tobii for package and shelf testing

The global partnership encompasses Tobii’s T60 XL technology, a wide-screen display with built-in eye trackers that presents research participants with a virtual reality render of a store shelf and products.

Participants can interact with the screen using a mouse, while the eye trackers passively follow their gaze to produce heat-maps of the most-viewed areas.

Tobii says P&G’s objective is to have “a globally-scaled virtual market research solution”. The consumer goods giant has been experimenting with virtual reality research applications for several years, most notably with ‘The Cave’, a 3D simulation of a store environment.

For Tobii, the P&G deal follows other high-profile tie-ups with the likes of global research group Ipsos and WPP-owned Red Dot Square.