#amscreen

Garmin Vivofit Amscreen healthcare network

Garmin Vivofit Amscreen healthcare network

In the UK, giant retailer Tesco is set to install an eye-scanning technology that targets advertisements to customers. This would help advertisers understand the type and number of people viewing their ads and subsequently modify their campaigns to reach out to their target markets.

The technology is called the OptimEyes screen, which will be displayed in all Tesco gas station convenience stores across the country. When customers stand in the checkout line and look at the flat-panel display, the internal camera on the screen scans their face then assigns them a gender and an age using algorithms. Based on these data, the screen will display adverts that are designed to appeal to them.

Image Source: internationalsupermarketnews.com

Aside from identifying gender and age, OptimEyes will also consider the time and date of customer visits. A campaign for milk and cereals is more likely to be displayed in the morning while ads for liquors are aired at night. When a big event, like the World Cup, is scheduled, customers can also expect a lot of displays for seasonal promotions.

Image Source: gadgetscrine.com

According to its developer, Amscreen, OptimEyes is limited to face detection, assigning of gender and age, and categorizing customers into four age groups: child, young adult, adult, and senior. It doesn’t store images and cannot recognize people. Nonetheless, some have already expressed their apprehension toward the technology, sensing its Big Brother-like tendency to pry.

Image Source: outputmagazine.com

However, while the UK citizenry is debating whether OptimEyes can improve customer engagement or only serves to invade shoppers’ privacy, no news is available yet as to when this technology will be introduced in the US.

By Siraj Datoo, Quartz, Nov. 3, 2013

The next time you're waiting to pay at Tesco, the ads you're watching may be watching you back. Britain's biggest retailer is rolling out screens with built-in cameras at its petrol stations that can identify people by their gender and approximate age, and customize ads based on who is watching.

The ads will come from UK digital media company Amscreen, which uses face-tracking technology from French firm Quividi to identify key traits in individuals and relay information back to marketers in real time. The system also measures how long people pay attention to the ads, which could theoretically let companies tweak their ads to make them more effective, much as online advertisers do with Google AdWords.

"Yes, it's like something out of Minority Report," Amscreen CEO Simon Sugar told UK trade publication The Grocer. He hopes to roll out the screens in UK supermarkets as well. In Tesco's 450 UK petrol stations, ads will run for 10 seconds each in a 100-second loop; the screens are expected to see and be seen by about 5 million adults a week.

The data that is collected and aggregated by Amscreen isn't as quite creepy as some competing systems: Japan's NEC uses face recognition to measure how often individuals shop at a given store, and Italy's Almax has a camera embedded in a mannequin's eye that can identify not only age and sex but also race. RetailNext and Brickstream use cameras to track individual shoppers, and also monitor their mobile phones to see if they're a repeat shopper.