Shoppers have been secretly filmed by big stores to try to make them spend more.

Tesco, Boots, and Co-op all commissioned SBXL, a little-known behavioural analysis agency, to record customers in their aisles.

SBXL boasts it can use the footage to ‘manipulate’ the emotions and behaviour of shoppers – and raise takings. The firm, which has also worked with L’Oreal, Coca-Cola, Danone and Kellogg’s, said adequate signage was in place and consent was sought from customers.

However, the Information Commissioner’s Office said last night that it would examine the Daily Mail’s findings to check for breaches of data protection laws.

Our undercover investigation also revealed that:

Tesco’s sales apparently rose £106million in the 12 months after Mars called in SBXL to increase sales of treats for pets;

Boots allowed the firm to use cameras to analyse how women apply make-up;

Multinationals are using arms-length agencies for similar sales techniques to avoid breaching data laws;

YouTube videos on SBXL’s public channel showed unsuspecting customers in B&Q, supermarkets and duty-free outlets;

Footage which included children remained on the channel for eight years.

Boasts: An SBXL representative shows our undercover reporter the covert methods used by SBXL

Some of the stores whose customers were filmed by SBXL also claim that appropriate signage was in place, or consent sought. However none has provided evidence to prove this.

The SBXL representative showed a Mail undercover reporter footage taken in UK shops, telling her: ‘These people don’t know they’re being filmed.’

This is despite SBXL later insisting it had not carried out covert recording.

‘The Daily Mail’s investigation has highlighted concerns about the use of CCTV’, said Steve Eckersley, the ICO’s director of investigations. We will be examining the material provided and making appropriate enquiries.’

Close-up: A camera captures a customer examining products in a Boots store - as seen in footage on SBXL's public YouTube channel

SBXL was called in by Mars, the confectionary giant which also owns Whiskas and Pedigree Chum, to work with Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s to sell more pet food.

It recommended exploiting the ‘guilt’ owners felt about their pets by putting cute pictures of puppies and kittens next to treats. This resulted in a 15 per cent increase in sales, worth £106million at Tesco and £20million at Asda over a year, according to the representative.

He said Boots was a major client, and SBXL worked with the chain seven or eight times in 2018, including on sales for its Soap and Glory range. Mondelez International, formerly Kraft, commissioned SBXL to ‘pump the smell of chocolate’ into a British convenience store, increasing Cadbury’s sales by 4 per cent.

Among the footage on SBXL’s YouTube channel – put there in apparent violation of the law – was a woman browsing the cheese aisle in Sainsbury’s, a close-up of an Asda shopper yawning in a magazine aisle and a man anxiously consulting his shopping list by the coffee shelves in Tesco.

Some of the videos were viewed hundreds of times and remained on the social media site for up to eight years. Several included images of children.

The SBXL channel even featured a ‘Christmas Special bloopers’ montage of CCTV footage to the Benny Hill theme tune, showing shoppers dropping products and struggling with baskets in a supermarket pharmacy. Silkie Carlo, of the campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: ‘This shocking expose reveals an unbelievable level of disrespect for loyal customers and an apparently alarming disregard for privacy laws.

More SBXL footage on YouTube, this time in B&Q. The SBXL channel even featured a ‘Christmas Special bloopers’ montage of CCTV footage to the Benny Hill theme tune, showing shoppers dropping products and struggling with baskets in a supermarket pharmacy

‘The fact that this footage of shoppers has even ended up being publicly broadcast on YouTube is outrageous. Customers should be treated with respect, but here they have been treated as guinea pigs in behavioural experiments.’

A spokesman for Privacy International, a charity, said: ‘There are some serious questions to be answered in relation to the legality of these actions conducted without the express consent of the individual. We are particularly worried that this is only a first step to even more invasive practices.’

A spokesman for SBXL said it had ‘never carried out covert recording of customers in stores’ with research ‘only ever carried out with the full co-operation from the public involved’. She said the YouTube videos showed shoppers ‘who were aware that they were being filmed for the purposes of market research, however, we recognise that the content should not have been posted on social media’.

Boots said ‘clear signage was placed directly next to the display and at store entrances to inform customers that filming was taking place for market research purposes’.

But it said it gave no permission for footage to go on YouTube. ‘We’ve been let down by SBXL and will not be working with them again’, it said.

An Asda spokesman said: ‘We have no relationship with SBXL nor gave any permission for footage from our stores to be posted online. We can reassure our customers that we always handle the privacy of their information with utmost care.’

Customers shopping in Asda in yet more footage posted on the YouTube channel

Tesco said it ‘does not covertly film customers in stores nor would we allow any other company to do so’ and that it worked with SBXL once in 2011 and customers gave permission to be interviewed.

Sainsbury’s said: ‘We do not work with this company and have never had a direct relationship with them’. It said SBXL had assured it that all data captured in Sainsbury’s stores had been deleted.

A Co-Op spokesman said that when SBXL filmed in its stores, ‘both times clear customer signage was in place’. Mondelez International said they were investigating.

World Duty Free, Coca-Cola, Mars, Kellogg’s, B&Q and Danone representatives all said they had not worked with SBXL for some years.

L’Oreal said it had no record of working with the firm within the past five years.

Email: sian.boyle@dailymail.co.uk

Twitter: @sian_boyle

The shoppers who have no idea that they are being recorded: Undercover footage shows how stores use video monitoring to maximise their sales

By Sian Boyle, Investigations Reporter

Pouting in the mirror in a Boots cosmetics aisle, a woman in her twenties tries on some make-up.

Preening and flicking her hair, she appears pleased with the results. It’s a deeply intimate scene repeated in stores throughout the country – and one that most women would never expect to be filmed.

This shopper certainly seems to have had little idea that a video camera was next to the mirror. It was recording her every emotion and facial expression – providing valuable information for a team of psychologists to analyse later. Only the very observant would have spotted A4 signs stuck to the wall saying that ‘images are being recorded … for the purposes of market research’.

The video monitoring is a worrying example of just how many cameras now follow our every move.

As online retailers hollow out the high street, traditional shops are fighting back with new – and more intrusive – sales techniques.

I’m undercover and have just been shown the footage of the young woman pouting in front of the cosmetics mirror. I’m amazed at the detail the camera can pick up.

Posing as the owner of three convenience stores seeking to increase her revenue, I’m at a meeting with an SBXL representative.

The SBXL channel even featured a ‘Christmas Special bloopers’ montage of CCTV footage to the Benny Hill theme tune

It’s a behavioural insights agency which specialises in close-up filming of real shoppers, so it can analyse them and advise clients on how they can maximise sales opportunities.

The representative explains the benefits of filming customers as we watched the make-up clip.

‘You’re looking at her face as she’s putting on the make-up and seeing if she’s enjoying it’, he said. ‘Whether it’s a positive experience, a negative experience. Seeing her come to life, basically.

‘It’s just about encouraging people to test products when they look in the mirror. Because once you’ve done that you develop a positive relationship with that product, and you’re much more likely to go on and buy it.’

As we watch more footage, he says: ‘These are all real people, they don’t know they’re being filmed.’

Boots, he said, was one of SBXL’s biggest clients, and from his laptop the representative shows me three clips from its stores – including wide-angle shots taken from ceiling-mounted cameras, as well as that close-up of the young woman. Bewildered, I ask him: ‘Where is that camera?’

A shopper takes a look in the coffee aisle at what is thought to be a Tesco in the UK

‘It’s hidden in the shelf’, he chuckles. ‘We put the cameras in ourselves.’

Boots denies cameras were hidden in its shelves, and says that consent was obtained from everyone filmed. It said it could not produce consent forms because SBXL would have destroyed them.

Boots is adamant it complied with data protection laws. The company also blames SBXL for not protecting customer data, says it was SBXL’s responsibility to gain the consent of those filmed, and says SBXL broke its contractual obligations with Boots.

But the Mail understands that, under data protection laws, Boots and SBXL are jointly responsible for the data of the customers filmed in its stores.

While I was undercover, the representative showed me footage from other high street shops and explained that some of SBXL’s clients give them the footage from their overhead CCTV cameras, while others asked his firm to temporarily install its own. And when I ask how the camera can so accurately pan and zoom in on a woman browsing in a supermarket cereal aisle, he tells me: ‘Someone’s operating it.’

A modest nine-employee company, situated on the A5127 in Lichfield, Staffordshire, SBXL’s nondescript premises give no indication that it’s behind some of the world’s biggest firms.

Its client history is a roll-call of multinationals – from Unilever to Disney, Reckitt Benckiser to Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson and Samsung to LVMH.

Former clients include household brands Tetley, Danone, Kellogg’s, Dulux, Lindt, Heinz, Rimmel and Weetabix as well as Coca-Cola, B&Q, L’Oreal, Warner Brothers, PepsiCo and Canon. What they all have in common is the desire to sell as many products to as many people as possible, and SBXL’s team of consumer psychologists helps them do exactly that.

One of only three such agencies in the UK, SBXL provides services including focus groups and virtual reality shop layouts.

But its forte is the filming of customers, who appear to have no idea they are being recorded.

A number of customers browse what is thought to be a Sainsbury's supermarket in the UK

These ‘high-performance digital recordings’, in the words of the company website, are invaluable for analysing real shopping behaviour, because ‘the picture a shopper wears on her face says more than 1,000 words from her mouth’.

Once it has captured authentic behaviour, SBXL can ‘manipulate shopper feelings to the ultimate benefit of your brand’ and offers prospective clients access to ‘an online portal that reveals people’s inner emotional responses to stores, brands, shopping and a whole lot more’.

How they may have flouted privacy laws Anyone identifiable in CCTV footage has the right for the images to be treated as their personal information, safeguarded under the Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation. Companies using CCTV or filming the public on their premises – as well as any third-party company hired to film on their behalf – have a duty to inform people that surveillance is in operation, and explain the reason for it taking place. Even if the SBXL footage was captured prior to May, when the GDPR regime was introduced, the company could still fall foul of the Data Protection Act 1998, if it and its clients weren’t transparent about all the reasons behind filming. Most of the companies approached by the Mail claim adequate signage was in place during filming, or that consent was sought from the subjects. However they haven’t been able to provide evidence of this. The GDPR rules state that any companies in control of an individual’s personal data must be accountable for its use, and not retain information for longer than necessary. Any company processing the personal information of children should be able to demonstrate their compliance with protecting it – including the steps taken to safeguard any underage data published online. Individuals have the right to request CCTV footage of themselves, which is usually free of charge. A company would need a lawful basis to publish footage of people on YouTube, and have formally assessed the impact to their privacy before doing so. A breach of the GDPR regime risks punishment from the Information Commissioner’s Office. It can fine a company up to £17million, or 4 per cent of annual global turnover. Advertisement

It adds: ‘Not their rationalised thoughts, their heartfelt feelings!’

Providing these insights allows SBXL to command rates of up to £20,000 a day. ‘It’s not cheap’, he told me at our meeting in the lobby of a luxury hotel in central London. ‘Which is why people like Coke and Unilever and Pepsi can afford it.’

‘What we are all about is helping clients sell more stuff. Essentially how you manipulate [people]… and when they walk through your store doors they buy something they didn’t really intend to buy.’

Techniques can include placing pictures of a product around the store in a sequence so a shopper is gradually ‘primed’ to buy it.

As well as colour and smell prompts, specific messages are put on strategically-placed signs. The brains behind the operation is 58-year-old managing director Phillip Adcock – author, TV pundit, psychologist and Mensa member.

His wife of 22 years, Kay, 56, is the financial director and secretary.

Mr Adcock grew up in Worcester, attended its fee-paying King’s School, and spent a decade in marketing before founding SBXL in 1999. His lieutenant, the representative I spoke to, explained to me how SBXL helps brands and shops work together.

‘Marmite is one of [Unilever]’s brands’, he said.

‘So they will then work with Tesco or Asda and say “We want to sell more Marmite in your stores”, and then that works out for Tesco. Even though we’re working for Unilever it’s almost always in partnership with another retailer.’

Referring to SBXL’s clients, the representative said: ‘They’re quite nervous about giving us their footage now. It’s really just big companies with loads of legal teams, but obviously if anything did happen, it would be in the Press, so it’s not something that small companies like yourself need to worry about.’

He offered to work with me for free if I allowed SBXL to ‘do some experiments’ in my stores.

PepsiCo, owners of Walkers, strongly denied it had engaged in filming of any kind with SBXL.

Both Lindt, and COTY, owners of Rimmel, said that while they had previously commissioned SBXL, projects never included filming.

Unilever said that ‘any in-store filming done for research purposes would always involve the clear display of notices so that shoppers are made fully aware’.

Canon explained that when it worked with SBXL a decade ago it ‘clearly communicated cameras were being used for the purpose of market research’. Samsung said it was not aware of any relationship with SBXL in the UK and Mondelez said it was investigating.

Disney, Weetabix, Tetley, Reckitt Benckiser, Dulux and Heinz said they had not worked with SBXL for some time.

Johnson & Johnson, Warner Brothers, LVMH, and Procter & Gamble did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Email: sian.boyle@dailymail.co.uk

Twitter: @sian_boyle

A global retail practice: The colossal reach of insight agency that is using covert techniques to gain intelligence on brand performance

By Sian Boyle, Investigations Reporter

With former clients throughout 20 countries in five continents, the colossal reach of SBXL alone indicates that its covert techniques are widespread across the global retail industry.

The behavioural insights agency analyses footage of shoppers' body language and facial expressions to see what made them ultimately choose to purchase a product or leave it, and advises companies on increasing future sales.

SBXL films shoppers from cameras on shelves, so even if its clients don't have a physical retail premises, the footage can still help gain intelligence on how well their particular brand or product performs in store.

It also offers services such as customer focus groups, shopper interviews and virtual reality shop layouts.

The tiny nine-person operation, based in Staffordshire, is one of only three such companies in Britain.

Brands which SBXL claims to have previously worked with

Yet its previous clients are, quite literally, the largest companies in the world.

There are household brands everyone knows, including Weetabix, Tetley, Danone, Heinz, Kellogg's, Dulux and Lindt, and even more ubiquitous names including L'Oreal, Warner Brothers, World Duty Free Group, Disney and Canon.

Other former clients are those which we haven't really heard of, but have perhaps the largest reach of all - the blue chip titans, multinationals and conglomerates which umbrella thousands of other companies.

These include Coty Inc., parent company of Burberry, Adidas and Rimmel, and Procter and Gamble, which parents Ariel and Pampers.

Pharmaceuticals giants Reckitt Benckiser, manufacturers of Nurofen, Air Wick and Dettol, and Johnson & Johnson are both former clients of SBXL.

Others include confectioner Mars; soft drinks giants Coca Cola and PepsiCo, and Mondelez International, which owns Cadbury's and Philadelphia.

Then there is Unilever which makes Marmite, amongst dozens of other products, and the Hain Celestial Group which produces Sun Pat, Hartley's Jam and Linda McCartney products.

Meanwhile LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton), the luxury goods house which parents Dior, Givenchy, Veuve Clicquot, Fendi and more, is also listed by SBXL as a former client, though LVMH did not respond to requests for comment on this.

Other companies named as clients by SBXL - but which strenously deny this - include Pfizer, Apple, BP, Lloyds Bank and Ferrero Roche UK.

SBXL's managing director Phillip Adcock declares on his LinkedIn profile that SBXL increased 'self-select purchases' of Coty-owned Rimmel cosmetics by 15 per cent in stores across Europe, that it increased Procter and Gamble hair care product sales by six pc in Tesco supermarkets, and increased sales of garden tools by 23pc at B&Q.

A map on the SBXL website. With former clients throughout 20 countries in five continents, the colossal reach of SBXL alone indicates that its covert techniques are widespread across the global retail industry

Besides the UK, SBXL has conducted projects in Ireland, USA, Sweden, Turkey, Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Australia and South Africa.

It is unknown how many other agencies which offer similar specialist surveillance are currently operating worldwide.

While the idea of being filmed so our purchase decisions can be analysed is disturbing, there is a logical reason for its occurrence.

When we shop online, cookies collect data about us, allowing websites to serve us with ever more tailored products.

The 'real world' shops need to try and compete with this convenience, and one way of doing so is by finding out as much about us as possible.

The high street is in dire straits in its battle with internet shopping, and desperate times would appear to call for desperate measures.

In the UK alone, dozens of high street stalwarts have either folded in recent years or are under threat.

AND WHAT THE COMPANIES SAID IN RESPONSE...

SBXL's spokeswoman said it 'has never carried out covert recording of customers in stores', and that its filming 'is only ever carried out with the full co-operation from the members of the public involved'.

Mondelez International, formerly Kraft, said: 'We are currently investigating the issues raised by the Daily Mail and will take the appropriate action to ensure our values are maintained.

'Customer research is commonplace within the retail industry, however, we only undertake research we believe to be consistent with our values of honesty and integrity and we have existing processes in place to ensure this is the case. 'We equally expect all our supplier partners to follow those same stringent values at all times.

'We will be reviewing the approaches used to gain consumer insights, ensuring they meet and maintain our high standards of conduct.'

A Unilever spokesperson said: 'We require any agency we work with to be compliant with GDPR regulations, and any in-store filming done for research purposes would always involve the clear display of notices so that shoppers are made fully aware.'

A Mars spokesman said: 'While we have no reason to believe the research we commissioned broke any rules …We take compliance and responsible marketing extremely seriously. We haven't worked with SBXL for a couple of years now and have no plans to work with them again.'

Canon explained that it had worked with SBXL in 2008-9, and that the agency 'clearly communicated cameras were being used for the purpose of market research.'

A Canon spokesman said: 'The research in-store took place over two days and all shoppers were asked if they were willing to participate in the study prior to entering the aisle where cameras were positioned.'

A spokeswoman for Reckitt Benckiser Group, the medicine and toiletries multinational, said: 'Our records indicate that project work was undertaken several years ago but we have no current or ongoing relationship with SBXL.

'We have zero tolerance of any surveillance without consent from participants in line with our code of business conduct and policies of responsible marketing.'

Coca Cola said SBXL 'did work with us on a one-off project in 2015.'

Disney said it used SBXL for one campaign in October 2013, but that all the requisite notices were in place.

World Duty Free Group said it worked with SBXL 'only a few times in 2012-13, so all interactions were prior to the new GDPR regulations'.

A spokeswoman for Tesco said it 'does not covertly film customers in stores nor would we allow any other company to do so'.

She added: 'We worked with SBXL on a one off trial in 2011 during which a number of customers gave permission to take part in a series of interviews.'

A spokesman for Kellogg's said: 'Kellogg's UK used SBXL eight years ago in 2011 for a single, six week project in two individual stores.

'[The] code of conduct… stipulate[d] that the footage would remain anonymous and only collected, held and shared responsibly with the consent of the shopper.'

A Danone representative said: 'We have not worked with this company for several years and have no current relationship with them' and B&Q said: 'We have not worked with this company since 2012.'

A Weetabix spokesman said it 'last engaged with SBXL in 2007', while Tetley last had a relationship with SBXL in 2005.

A spokesperson for AkzoNobel, owners of Dulux said 'we have no record of working with them for the past five years'.

Heinz said it 'does not work with SBXL and we have not been a client of theirs for more than seven years.'

PepsiCo, owners of Walkers Crisps, strongly denied it had commissioned SBXL for filming of any kind. A representative said PepsiCo worked with SBXL once, in 2014, when it discussed the development of an app 'which never went beyond prototyping stage.'

A spokeswoman for Coty Inc. said: 'While we worked with SBXL once on a small project in Sweden in late 2017, the project did not include using any of SBXL's filming or recording techniques.'

A spokesman from Lindt & Sprüngli said Lindt 'has never conducted or commissioned any research project with SBXL involving… covert methodology', and that it commissioned SBXL in 2010-11 for market research purposes only.

Samsung said it 'investigated the below and we can confirm that it is not aware of any relationship with SBXL in the UK.'

L'Oréal said it could find no record of having worked with SBXL in the last five years.

LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton) did not respond to repeated requests for comment and nor did Johnson & Johnson, Warner Brothers, Procter and Gamble and The Hain Celestial Group.

A spokeswoman from Lloyds Bank said 'we have no evidence of having worked with them', and The Body Shop said it had no records of working with SBXL over the past ten years.

Pfizer, Apple, BP, and Ferrero Roche UK denied having ever worked with SBXL.

Email: sian.boyle@dailymail.co.uk

Twitter: @sian_boyle