CPGmatters: Kimberly-Clark Scores with Virtual Retail Settings
Through a special arrangement, what follows is an excerpt of a current article from the monthly e-zine, CPGmatters, presented here for discussion.
By using virtual reality technology to create compelling retail environments that sell more of their diapers and tissues, Kimberly-Clark is elevating the art of actionable insights.
Virtual depictions of stores, shelves, products and displays—even sounds and smells people encounter while shopping—enhance traditional means of research and enable the CPG manufacturer to "garner deeper insights into factors that impact a shopper's decision to make a purchase. It often does this faster, better and more cost-effectively," said Mark Rhodes, the virtual reality team leader at Kimberly-Clark.
With virtual reality, K-C and its strategic retail partners have a stealth, risk-averse way to test new products, packages, display positions, assortments and point-of-purchase materials without taxing muscles or bearing the cost of physical goods movement. Depictions of retail interiors on the full wall-size screen at its facility in Greenville, Wis. (opened in May 2007), are realistic and reflective of real world shopping, he stated.
The facility has provided distinct virtual reality-driven insights, he said, among them the ability to:
- Gauge shopper engagement with in-store point-of-purchase materials, to help retailers determine where to most effectively channel spend and merchandising efforts. The system tracks eye movement and head turns, and discovers which specific element attracts the shopper—color, price or something else.
- Gain insights into consumers' wants, needs and shopping habits by exposing them to the high-tech kiosk called the K-C SmartStation. The kiosk, which simulates a person's shopping experience, sits inside a state-of-the-art visualization room at the Greenville studio.
Mr. Rhodes believes that K-C is "one of only a few companies in the world to have an innovation design studio with an integrated virtual reality system...By engaging ourselves and our customers in this virtual world, we can spark better ideas to improve the shopping experience and collaborate on new product concepts and innovations."
K-C accrues further benefits from the studio and its virtual reality technologies, some of which Mr. Rhodes described as:
- Product development and design teams can collaborate at the facility to explore global residential and commercial environments and lifestyle needs, and develop product solutions tailored to local needs around the world, without leaving its home state.
- K-C can develop and test next-generation retail environments with customers and third-parties such as store designers, without the extensive costs or time associated with building actual in-store environments.
- K-C and customers can visualize changes at shelf that previously could only be examined through data analysis. This makes merchandising and planning processes easier and more intuitive.
They add to the company's product, marketing research and customer development toolkits, and advance capabilities that touch customers, shoppers and users.
It is Mr. Rhodes' belief that "in-store communication has become more and more important" to reach shoppers when they're making purchase decisions. "Our tools help us determine the most effective in-store vehicles, and then build customer-specific shopper marketing programs designed to increase foot traffic and build loyalty and sales for K-C and our retail partners," he said.
Discussion Questions: What do you think of Kimberly-Clark's Innovation Design Studio? What do you think the pros and cons are of using virtual reality technologies to gauge the shopping experience? What else would you like to know about the use of virtual retail technologies to understand the shopping experience?