“What we’re essentially doing is creating the retail environment of the future,” says Barry Salzman, CEO of YCD Multimedia, who is working with Dunkin Donuts to employ facial recognition technology to better target customers with tailored advertising.
In the infamous words of Homer Simpson, “D’Oh!”
This is both an impressive and a frightening display of new technology, but if retailers and advertisers want to “jump the curve,” they had better get a hold of how accelerating advances in facial recognition technology will change the retail advertising landscape in the near future.
Why is this? Because, according to this informative article, facial recognition is already 85% accurate and it is only going to get better. Secondly, more traditional methods of advertising—such as television ads—are no longer as effective as they once were. According to the article, it used to take only three ads to reach 85% of all women in 1996; now it takes 100! (I don’t actually know if these numbers are true, but as technology becomes more pervasive and our methods for receiving information continue to proliferate, the overall trend is clear—TV is becoming less effective.)
Interested in reviewing other future-related retail articles by Jack Uldrich? Check out these past musings:
Tesco Jumps the Curve
The Future of the Grocery Store
Retailers are Jumping the Curve
