San Jose Mercury News: New digital signs target people by age and gender
The San Jose Mercury News reports on an issue I’ve discussed before: digital signage advertising and the privacy questions related to that type of targeted behavioral marketing.
Using technology from top Silicon Valley companies such as Cisco and Intel, advertisers are creating a new breed of digital signs that can be customized depending on a viewer’s age and gender.
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. [...]
Businesses insist the signs are good for them and for consumers because they can offer more focused and effective advertising. [...]
Using facial-recognition software from other companies — such as TruMedia of Tampa, Fla., — the signs can recognize the demographic characteristics of people standing in front of them and instantly change their ads. [...]
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 gender and approximate age of those standing in front them. That way, if a preteen 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 contends its versions can even determine the race and nationality of a viewer. [...]
Any ad targeting makes some people uncomfortable. A survey of 1,000 adults last year by UC-Berkeley and University of Pennsylvania researchers found that 66 percent opposed such pitches.
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