Do immersive techniques help to capture consumer reality?

Abstract

Immersive technologies simulating real-life environments can be effective tools in consumer testing, providing results with a higher external validity than laboratory testing and be a valid alternative to consumer testing in real-life situations. The current study compares three immersive techniques implemented in laboratory settings reproducing the situation of ‘drinking beer in a pub’ – 1. immersive room with the projection of the situation on flat walls with videos at 180° and with a pub set-up, 2. VR headset with the projection of the situation from a 360° Video, 3. VR headset with the projection of the situation from 3D modelling and 360° photos. The aim was to assess their added value versus tests conducted in a traditional testing environment (“in-lab”) and in a real pub. Emotional profile, liking, intention to re-taste the beer samples and consumers’ perceived engagement were assessed and compared in these five test conditions. A total of 513 Italian male adults (mean age 37.4) were involved in the study, each participating in one test setting. The immersive techniques were assessed for efficacy in products’ discrimination and repeatability through comparison of duplicate samples. Overall, the findings provided evidence of lesser product discrimination for hedonic questions and for emotions in assessments in the real pub and in the immersive approaches compared with central location test. Repeatability, measured as proximity of hedonic scores provided by individual participants to the duplicate products, was better in the real pub and in the immersive room. Data on emotions showed a good level of repeatability in all the test conditions. Moreover, the frequency of emotions showing positive relation with liking was higher for in-context evaluations compared to central location test. All the immersive technologies tested improved consumers engagement. Overall, more similarity of the results with the real pub was obtained for the immersive room and VR 3D modelling.