One of the more appealing near-future innovations for outdoor advertising is targeted advertising working in the way like it does on the Internet. Now, the future is here, with innovations allowing smart billboards to adjust depending on the age, gender and number of people looking at it.
So if a fifty-year-old man strolls by an ad for tampons, the ad will morph seamlessly into an ad for running shoes before he gets there, writes Amy Lee. If a crowd of men and women of all ages come by on a cold morning, the display might transform into an ad for hot coffee: a gender-neutral, time and weather appropriate solution. And if hundreds of people are tweeting about the Knicks game, the software might realize a sports game is unfolding nearby, and display a nicely appropriate Gatorade ad.
The software uses a built-in camera to measure how long people look at an ad. A successful ad will, obviously, draw more and longer attention. The company that created the ads is quick to point out that they are not invasive and all information gathered is private.
“The information that we are collecting is purely numerical,” said Immersive CEO Jason Sosa. “It s not identifiable to any one particular person.”
Source: Huffington Post
