Already starting to appear in selected malls and
other spots around the country, the signs have the potential to
revolutionize the retailing industry, but their intrusiveness has led
to criticism from privacy advocates and nervousness from some in the
marketing industry itself.
“The vast majority of people walking in stores, near
elevators and in other public and private spaces have no idea that the
innocent-looking flat screen TVs playing videos may be capturing their
images and then dissecting and analyzing them for marketing purposes,”
the nonprofit,
warned in a report it issued on digital signs in January. “Controls
need to be put in place now, before this technology runs amok.”
Businesses insist the signs are good for them and
for consumers, because they can offer more focused and effective
advertising. And the burgeoning market has caught the eye of
which makes gear that displays images and management software for the
signs. It’s not a huge business yet for the company, according to
The trend stems from a desire among marketers to make ads more effective by making them more relevant to those seeing them.
“If you come by a sign and it’s playing something you’re not interested in, it’s noise to you,” said
which touts the ability of its chips to provide visually appealing ad
images and to process the audience data the signs capture. But if the
message is tailored to a specific individual’s needs, he added, the
person often will welcome the information.
Using facial-recognition software from other companies — such as TruMedia of
of signs with that capability are in operation worldwide in retail
malls, airports, banks and other places. But he said it’s unclear how
many are automatically adjusting their ads for customers because many
businesses that have installed them don’t want to reveal that to
competitors.
Some of the signs have proven controversial, including digital billboards Castrol operated in
in September. Equipped with cameras, the signs read the license plates
of each passing motorist, accessed a database that revealed the
automobile’s model and year, and flashed the driver a message about
what type of oil their vehicle should use.
The ads were blasted as intrusive and a potentially unsafe distraction, and Castrol halted them after only a few days.
The digital devices are beginning to resemble the
brainy signs featured in the 2002 science-fiction movie “Minority
Report,” which could recognize people and hail them by name. Many can
gauge the sex and approximate age of those standing in front them. That
way, if a pre-teen girl watching the screen wanders away and an adult
male approaches, the sign automatically can switch from showing an ad
for Hello-Kitty Dress-Me Bears, for example, to one for men’s work
boots. Samsung claims its versions can even determine the race and
nationality of a viewer.
These digital signs are part of a growing push to personalize ads through technology.
Web ads that are customized based on a user’s interests and demographics have been a staple for companies like
found that 77 percent of the marketers it surveyed in January “are
planning to use or already use audience targeting for their online
strategy.”
More recently, companies have used GPS technology in
mobile phones to tailor ads to a user’s location (“25% off lattes” as
someone walks by a coffee shop, for instance). Although many retailers
won’t send such ads unless invited to do so by a consumer, the practice
worries the
the federal government on Monday, the nonprofit public interest
organization warned against letting the practice proliferate “without
strong privacy and consumer health-related safeguards in place.”
Any ad targeting makes some people uncomfortable. A survey of 1,000 adults last year by
Count
termed the idea “weird” and wondered if the equipment might make
insulting errors about “someone of ambiguous gender” or mistake a short
person for a child. Assuming a sign “can tell something about you
strikes me as arrogant,” he said.
“That’s so wrong,” added state agricultural technician
who was at the same mall searching for a handbag. “This is like the
Internet search engines that follow your shopping behavior. It’s so
invasive.”
Face-assessing digital displays even make some advertisers skittish. Last month, Point of
published guidelines for using the signs, advising among other things
that consumers always be told when they are under surveillance. Despite
the advantages of such technology, the industry group concluded, being
able to monitor a consumer’s every move and facial feature “sends
shivers down the spine of even the boldest marketer.”
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