Virtual reality, actual insights

New Zealanders are renowned for their ‘number eight wire’ mentality – a colloquial term that describes Kiwi ingenuity. But resourcefulness means different things to different people. For Massey University marketing student Alexander Schnack, it meant the frustration arising from a lack of reliable tools to measure consumer tastes left him with no choice but to develop his own, using an old game station and a tonne of IP (intellectual property) capability. The project began in 2016 when the Palmerston North-based PhD researcher found himself hitting a brick wall when investigating reliable ways of measuring consumer response to product packaging. During the course of his probing, he discovered that much of the research methodology associated with product packaging was over-reliant on surveys. Worse still was the revelation that the findings often delivered inaccurate results.

“I found that people would report buying items when, in reality, they didn’t,” he says, noting participants often feel the need to post-rationalise their decision-making and offer answers they “expected you want to hear”. Schnack recognised that he needed to find a way to observe customers firsthand, but was conscious of the high cost associated with observational studies – particularly when they involve comparisons between different