Long Range Tracking for Advertisers
May 10th, 2007
“A Canadian firm has launched a device that can track the gaze of multiple people from up to 10 meterss away. Originally developed at Queen’s University, Ontario, they hope to sell it to advertisers to allow them to monitor how many people look at their ads. Admittedly they are trying more benign stuff too like better hearing aids, but I doubt that will make up for movie posters that make a song and dance whenever you glance their way.”
The developers behind the technology â?? dubbed Eyebox2 â?? believe it could have a range of possible applications, but should particularly interest advertisers. This is because it allows billboards to track people’s attention and perhaps respond when it wanes.
Besides tracking the # of eye balls - we expect advertisers to use the system to follow content. Do individuals necessarily stare at the “shampoo bottle, logo or the pretty girl in the bathing suit?” Interesting results will surely emerge.
If this technology works - expect other more practical and beneficial uses ranging from services for disability, systems of control and other tracking analytic type uses.
Cool stuff!
Via - New Scientist
Nielsen is utilizing new GPS enabled mobile technologies to better and more accurately measure the relationship between audience and out door media.
Nielsen has developed a small, cell phone-size device to provide highly accurate reach, demographic and frequency data for interactions with out of home media.
In early tests in Chicago Nielsen recruited 750 volunteers who agreed to carry the device, called the Npod, or Nielsen Personal Outdoor Device, everywhere they went for 10 days.
Pre-screened participants defined into statistically representative demographic profiles, allowed their every movement to be tracked and recorded â?? like an automated digital version of those Nielsen diaries of old. Every 20 seconds, the Npod captured each userâ??s latitude and longitude, while a computer system compared the data with the coordinates of 12,000 â??geo-codedâ?? outdoor signs in Chicago, including bus shelters, standard posters, billboards and overhead signs.
The user’s experience and exposure to outdoor media is the matched and set into a matrix of other variables including speed of movement, distance from geo points, and display times, illumination, time of day etc to map the impact and impression of each interaction.
This data is then matched to established impression data to provide marketers, media owners and advertising agencies with a more detailed map of the interaction between viewer and media.
Definitely exciting stuff and explosive.
With out of home media continuing to grow at the fastest rate of all media aside from the internet - we’re looking forward to more details and results of this data.
