There is a growing number stores deploying video cameras, motion detectors and other sensors - some hidden, some overt - but all doing more than merely monitoring aisles for shoppers.
Increasingly, whether customers realize it or not, and often they don’t, this technology is being used to study consumers for behavior, shopping and product preferences and other insights that will lead to more marketing opportunities and increase sales, according to the New York Times.
Right now, companies that use this technology say that individuals are not targeted but rather that the data is used to determine, for instance, whether a particular aisle is too dark or cumbersome or whether products are placed too or too low. For example, Cisco Systems, which supplies networking equipment used in some of these deployments, said outdoor recreation retailer Cabela, installed cameras to monitor how long sales clerks took to approach customers. (via the Times).
"Far fewer customers were being approached within their guidelines than they thought," according to Joanne Bethlahmy, a director at Cisco's Internet business solutions group.
Smart Digital Signs
Other technologies - primarily in-store digital signs - are also being used for more than their original display intent. Rather, advances in digital signs - along with their lowered cost - have made it possible for them to assess the shopper before them to determine age, gender and even body type. The technology allows advertisers to tailor and customize ads in entirely new ways with accompanying mirrors and image analysis technology that can figure out a person's size and then show only ads of clothes that would flatter or fit the person.
None of this is exactly new. Close to two years ago, for example, Procter & Gamble was placing radio-frequency identification tags on products at a Metro Extra retail store in Germany. When a customer pulled the product off the shelf, a digital screen at eye level would change its message depending on his or her behavior, according to the Wall Street Journal. For instance, when a consumer picked out a shampoo, for instance, the screen might recommend a certain type or brand of conditioner, according to G2 Interactive, a digital-marketing arm of WPP Group's G2 Network (via the Journal).
Privacy Advocates
These advances, though, are attracting the attention of privacy advocates, which would like to see some limits placed on their use. Some expect that, while these early marketing attempts are based generically on gender or age, eventually this next step will be taken where consumers are individually targeted with marketing and sales tactics specifically tailored to them.
At the beginning of March the Center for Democracy & Technology released a report that included a set of privacy recommendations for the digital signage industry. The report focused on the industry's adoption of identification and interactivity technologies such as facial recognition, mobile marketing, social networking, RFID tracking and license plate scanners.
The recommendations in the report, "Building The Digital-Out-Of-Home Privacy Infrastructure," are based on the widely accepted Fair Information Practices (FIPs), it said. According to the CDT, "unless the digital signage advertising industry adopts strong self-regulatory guidelines, it is likely to face consumer backlash and reactive government regulation that may stifle innovation."
