The next time you fill up at the gas station on $3 per gallon gas and watch a video advertisement at the pump, the ad you see may be based on your face. Black? White? Old? Young? Male? Female? Fat? Skinny? Tall? Short? Ugly? Pretty?? Stressed? Relaxed?
No need to worry, Outcast has the right ad for you.
Are you a fat black guy? Perhaps the features and benefits of a McDonalds Big Mac meal and directions to the nearest Micky D’s are what you’re looking for.
Or are you a skinny 33 year old white guy like myself? Maybe an Audi commercial is what it takes to get you out of your 10 year old Lexus and into some serious German engineering.
Facial recognition software, first developed by the military, is finding mainstream applications.
It will be interesting to see what the consumer reaction is once people (and the media) get wind of this.
Cookies track our behavior and serve relevant ads based on contextual and behavioral factors. But how will people react when their face is actually getting scanned and run through a database?
In the big picture, scanning my face is not really all that different than following my journey around the internet and building profile information about me, but at an emotional level it’s kind of freaky.
Maybe they can install facial recognition technology in public toilet stalls, such as at Yankee Stadium, and deliver video ads on the back of the door based on how much someone is struggling to drop a deuce.
Like in Austin Powers, when Tom Arnold tells Austin Powers to “show that turd whose boss”, the facial recognition technology can see that you’re really struggling – straining to the point of sweating – and deliver a soothing Corona beach and beer ad.
Or if you’re multitasking and reading a magazine it can even recognize the magazine – say BusinessWeek – and deliver an ad for a business productivity tool, such as SAP or Blackberry.
The possibilities are endless…
