UT together with professional marketing specialists develop the first consumer behaviour laboratory of its kind

In March, head of the Chair of Marketing of the University of Tartu Andres Kuusik and manager of Initiative media agency Indrek Soom made an agreement whereby they decided to join the skills of the academic world with the real marketing world. The partners’ common goal is to develop the first consumer behaviour laboratory in Estonia, which would enable to analyse consumer behaviour and the ways how it can be influenced.

“Consumer traffic, noticing different communication elements and the resulting emotions are analysed and based on the analysis, marketing channels can be put to work with maximum efficiency,” the managing director of Initiative Indrek Soom commented on the agreement.

Head of UT Chair of Marketing Andres Kuusik says that through different projects the university’s researchers have come to an understanding that together with Initiative they can perceive the customers’ needs much better and, using more modern equipment, create value. “We have been developing the consumer behaviour laboratory for quite a while already. The main focus is laid on neuromarketing, i.e. different psychophysiological measurements for the benefit of marketing. For example, we measure people’s emotions and track their eye movement in order to optimise the design of packages or advertising materials, the user convenience of a website or internet shop,” said Kuusik.

The newest tools of the consumer behaviour laboratory are eye-tracking glasses. “These are very precise tools for analysing what people actually notice in a shopping environment, or in the street or while consuming the media,” said Kuusik.

According to Andres Kuusik, development of the consumer behaviour laboratory will give an output to the work of researchers, as their discoveries can be useful for Estonian enterprises. “On the other hand, it gives interesting practical examples for our lectures, and an opportunity for the students to do something completely new and practical in the field of marketing. We have let students use the lab equipment for their homework and also several bachelor’s and master’s theses have been written based on results obtained with these devices,” Kuusik pointed out the practical opportunities the laboratory can provide for students.

Additional information: Andres Kuusik, UT Head of Chair of Marketing, 737 6321, andres.kuusik@ut.ee