We are an inch closer to a laMinority Report type advertisement, If you haven’t seen the movie, one of the scenes is where Tom Cruise walks in a mall while his eyes are getting scanned by 3D screens, Those interactive screens call him directly by his name to grab his attention. Watch below
Coming back to topic, advertisers in London are using a gender-specific targeting of advertisements in London’s West End, As reported by The Independent. This, however, is a 2 week trail run.
Using the Face Recognition technology the interactive advertisements koisks use a HD Camera and scan a pedestrian, say walking by a bus Stop on Oxford Street, the Computer powered Artificial Intelligence algorithm analyses and detect the gender based on specific facial attributes of the jawline, cheekbones, nose and eyes with almost a 90% accuracy. Based on the detection of a pedestrian’s gender, the digital placement shows an advertisement targeted at a man or a woman. In the future, the computer could also make a judgement about a person’s age, race or body type and serve ads accodingly.
This first of the kind advertisement is placed on Oxford Street is being produced by a children’s charity called Plan UK. Linked to it is an ad campaign that promotes education of girls within impoverished countries, the interactive board shows a 40-second video when a female is scanned by the facial recognition software. If a male pedestrian is scanned by the advert, he will only see a brief message to take a look at the Plan UK site on the Internet for more information.
According to an article in the BBC, the advertisement has cost the PlanUK £30,000, approximately $60,000 however a quarter Million pounds is expected to be raised in the next four months for the “Because I Am a Girl” cause.
Clear Channel UK and 3D Exposure are the companies behind this concept and are planning to integrate the Facial recognition technology. This is more of an integration to 2 most commonly used tech products, multi-touch technology of Apple’s iPad and the facial recognition software similar to Microsoft’s Kinect.
Would you call this creepy, innovative or plain stupid, what if it malfunctioned to show up an ad which may cause a racial slur, who would be responsbile. Nonetheless, we welcome the technology.