Brands and retailers spend millions of dollars designing advertising creative, product packaging, merchandising displays, and storefronts in order to catch their customer’s attention.
But like always the right amount is a crucial matter. Information overload – regardless of which kind – can lead to disregard instead of attention. “Three seconds and they are gone”, explains Ralf Simpelkamp, Co-Founder of Aitrak, at the EHI-Retail Design Conference in Cologne in September, and “unseen is unsold.”
Capturing the right visual attention in the first few seconds is critical.
In studio-situations the company is testing different arrangements. They are using eye-tracking technology combined with artificial intelligence software to reveal what customers really see in the first few seconds. Heatmaps show what people look at the most and demonstrate the points of interest. These insights enable Aitrak to measure the visual hierarchy of a design.
Different window designs, store fronts or merchandising displays, i.e. Hugo Boss, have been tested. The results clearly show that too much stimulation in one picture will destroy the most important trait – and that often means: Simpler is usually better!
Author: Ute Holtmann, EHI
