Market research studies are more demanding than ever, and market research suppliers now realize that they have to work harder to attract respondents to their surveys and sustain their interest.

Make your market research project come alive with Virtual Reality

At quite reasonable cost, MDSA can deploy Virtual Reality simulations in your research study to engage respondents, obtain more meaningful information from them, and persuade them to come back to give you more information!

The simulated reality can be anything you want it to be — an auto dealership, inside an airplane, a restaurant, a hotel, a home, whatever.  The example above replicates a grocery store, as that environment is quite common and familiar.  The virtual store also gives you an idea of what respondents can do in the environment, and thus what kind of information you can obtain from them.

For example, respondents can pick products from store shelves, turn them, examine them closely, and decide if they want to buy or put them back on the shelf.  In an auto dealership, they can look inside the car, sign up for a test drive, or even take one (in virtual reality).

Larger Possibilities for Market Research

Clearly, using Virtual Reality simulations opens up greater possibilities for market research. For example, you can:

• Ask them questions as they wander in the virtual environment.  These questions simply arise from the environment itself as they pass through certain areas relevant to the questions.
• Track their actions, both voluntary and involuntary.  For example, you can track the things they purchased and put back on the shelf, or you can track all the items they viewed and for how long.
• Invite them to try something.  For example, they can order a new kind of chewing gum in the virtual environment, and this can be sent to them as a product trial.
• Reward them based on the time they spent in the virtual environment, allow them to accumulate points toward prizes, and even redeem points for prizes in the environment itself.
• Have them interact with an avatar.  For example, the respondent can ask a virtual attendant for a restricted-use product that’s behind the virtual attendant rather than on the store shelves.

If you’d like to discuss the inclusion of Virtual Reality in your next market research project, please call Juho (pronounced “yoo-ho”), Matt, or Jerry at (425) 677-7430 jerry@mktgdatascience.org.  We’ll get back to you right away!