THIRD ANNUAL SCREENS ISSUE - MediaPost

OUT-OF-HOME
tial coordinates for users,
their demographic information
can be quite detailed,
and “people are obviously
less squeamish about sharing
personal information when
you’re announcing to the
world what you’re doing anyway,”
Gerba observes. DOOH
displays can easily integrate
location-based networks,
enabling them to deliver targeted
advertising, promotions
and so on through interactions
with mobile devices
with NFC or Bluetooth.
Facial Recognition Is
Still in the Fight
It would be a mistake to conclude
that advertisers and
DOOH networks are simply
choosing to skip facial recognition
technology, however.
Because while NFC and
place-based networks offer
many opportunities for identifying
and locating individuals,
the fact remains that
only facial recognition technology
is capable of gleaning
identifying aspects of an
individual. Likewise when it
comes to precise tracking of
individual movements — a
key source of data for retail
marketing — there are few
alternatives besides technology
that “look back.”
Gerba notes that locationbased
social networks “don’t
give you the idea of how
shoppers are moving around
in the store, or traffic patterns,
so there’s still plenty
of space for complementary
technology.” Similarly,
location-based networks and
mobile devices equipped with
36 MEDIA MAGAZINE Spring 2012
NFC don’t necessarily convey
key demographic information
including age, race or gender.
Only facial recognition
technology can provide these
for every individual whether
or not their mobile device is
equipped with certain hardware
and, indeed, regardless
of whether they have a mobile
device at all. While new, gesture-based
DOOH systems,
which invite participation,
can make some data-gathering
voluntary, there are other
situations where passive data
collection is the only or most
effective option.
In fact, recent months
have seen renewed interest
in facial recognition technology,
though it’s not always
identified as such. Of particular
note is the Audience
Impression Metrics Suite
created by Intel for DOOH
networks following its acquisition
of Cognovision in
November 2010. The AIM
Suite pairs biometric scanning
with powerful embedded
computers to ascertain
“actual impressions, length of
impressions, potential audience
size, and gender and age
range demographics.”
A number of DOOH networks
have tapped Intel’s
AIM Suite for audience measurement.
In January of this
year, InWindow Outdoor
announced a pilot program
to create fixed “experience
stations” in malls and hotel
locations nationwide in
partnership with Intel. The
freestanding, seven-foottall
interactive kiosks will
enable InWindow to develop
a variety of “immersive”
brand experiences, including
gesture interaction, multitouch
screens and nearfield-communicationcapabilities.
Provision Interactive
Technologies also announced
that it was integrating Intel’s
AIM Suite for audience
measurement into its 3-D
holographic kiosk displays.
Provision will be deploying
the kiosks in big-box retailers
nationwide through a partnership
with Premier Retail
Networks (which has already
worked with facial recognition
technology for merchandising
displays). And in
February DS-IQ, which works
with PRN affiliate Walmart,
announced that it is integrating
AIM into its Retail Media
Platform, using AIM to incorporate
real-time audience
characteristics and engagement
as inputs for store analytics
around foot-traffic patterns,
product engagement
and product abandonment
by store.
In short, some of the
nation’s largest retailers will
be deploying facial recognition
technology in the near
future — indicating that the
technology is hardly in danger
of being passed by. Of course,
this simply raises the same
privacy issues which bedeviled
facial recognition technology
when it first debuted
several years ago — issues
which haven’t been resolved
since then. Chief among
them: How should DOOH
networks alert consumers
that they are being watched
by sophisticated technology
in order to deliver targeted
advertising? And will this
admission generate any kind
of backlash?
As it turns out, a set of
privacy guidelines for using
facial recognition technology
in DOOH networks has
already been drawn up by the
Point of Purchase Advertising
Institute. The voluntary POPAI
guidelines include recommendations
about the way
information is gathered and
used, covering key issues like
whether data is retained. For
example, “In no event should
image, video or biometric data
… be stored without an explicit
consumer opt-in to do so.”
Most currently available facial
recognition systems for DOOH
measurement conform with
this rule, only using biometric
information once before erasing
it. On disclosure, POPAI
advises “marketers must provide
a disclosure notice to consumers
who may be monitored
… [which] should describe the
… collection methods in effect
and whether data collected …
will be combined with other
data including, but not limited
to, register receipt information,
credit card information,
any NPPI information or data
collected by third party and/or
affiliate marketers.”
However, to date no
major retailers or DOOH
networks have adopted the
POPAI guidelines, leaving it
somewhat ambiguous what
rules — if any — will actually
govern the use of facial recognition
technology. In other
words, the industry is still at
square one.