Dr. David Greenawalt, Research Director at SmartRevenue, spoke at the Society for Applied Anthropology's 2010 Annual Meeting on the 26th of March in Mérida, México.

In his presentation, "Pile Sorts to Planograms: Applying Anthropology in Shopper Research," David explained how consumer and shopper research is rapidly growing and the ways in which anthropological methods and anthropologists are becoming increasingly involved. Yet, research within this applied field is necessarily different from traditional anthropology and leads us to renegotiate our definitions of anthropology and ethnography, and to hone our methodological toolkit to meet new challenges. Specifically, the presentation discussed how cognitive research techniques, such as the pile sort, can be used to develop models of in-store organization which are more intuitive for shoppers and thus can create a more efficient and enjoyable shopping experience.