What Do Consumers Want? Look at Their Selfies

Excerpt from this article:

…A Chicago-based company called Pay Your Selfie to gather those insights and present them in reports on consumer behavior that are meant to go where focus groups and surveys cannot.

Among the tidbits that Crest, owned by Procter & Gamble, learned from its recent monthlong quest for selfies: There’s a huge spike in brushing from 4 to 6 p.m., probably tied to a desire for happy-hour fresh breath. That knowledge could be useful when Crest decides which times of the day to start future social media campaigns.

Users of the app receive anywhere from 20 cents to $1 for each “task” completed — in Crest’s case, a snapshot taken “while brushing your teeth with your favorite Crest product.” Users can’t double-dip; the app allows only one selfie per task.

The selfies are a good way for companies to obtain information that people can’t or don’t articulate in focus groups or other traditional research methods, said Ravi Dhar, director of the Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management. For example, they could lead to an understanding of which rituals go along with certain types of consumption, he said.