As advertising continues to get more targeted and specific, it will soon be very scary and creepy to see ads. They will be a reflection of what marketers think of you. Ads will be served to you based on a general consumer profile, tweaked and customized based on your personal buying behaviour.
Check out this technology from …where else…Japan that allows advertisers to customize the content of billboards using cameras. The cameras use face-detection technology to analyze the person walking by, then tells the billboard to serve the appropriate ad (link)
On the surface, this is harmless. Quite innovative and novel, actually. But this could also go really really wrong, really really fast.
This is what Times Square looks like today (click):
Ideally, this would transform into:
Sufficiently targeted items for my interests and the interests of my demographics. This is the ideal situation, everything is relevant and the ads actually intrigue me. It would be depressing to see that the world thinks that all 20-something males need to survive is beer, condoms and slacker movies, but that’s a different post for another time.
However, that’s an ideal situation. What if I deviated a little from the average?
What if I’m walking around with my buddies? They’d find out instantly that I might want the special edition DVD of Hairspray, that I’m addicted to Gossip Girl, that I have erectile dysfunction and that I need butt cream.
Then again, Generation Y is so used to giving away their privacy that this might actually not a big deal…
August 1, 2008 on 2:41 am
Thanks for your post. You point out personnalisation limits. By the way time square is a public place that communicates with us. Since everybody can be on time square, there should be ads for everybody, that is also what we have in common (the ads of time square).
August 5, 2008 on 11:41 pm
The first thing I thought of when reading the opening paragraph was Tivo. When you Tivo a couple shows it will start to recommend other ones which you may like. I enjoyed the post, very interesting.
August 17, 2008 on 6:35 am
@stetoscope
I seriously think it’s just a matter of time until this becomes reality. It’s basically how we are advertised to on the internet (cookies, geographic targeting, etc), but transferred over into real life. should be very interesting
@Jessica
glad you liked it! the Tivo nod reminds me of how Amazon’s recommendation system — which probably works the same way as Tivo — still has tons of glitches to fix, but I love it. that’s going to play a huge role in how we’re marketed to because it inherently has more credibility.