Now advertising billboards can read your emotions 鈥� and that鈥檚 just the start
Dr Andy McStay, of the writing in . Read the .
Advertising giant is currently testing advertising billboards with hidden Microsoft Kinect cameras that read viewers鈥� emotions and react according to whether a person鈥檚 facial expression is happy, sad or neutral.
The 鈥� which feature a fictitious coffee brand named 鈥� have already appeared on Oxford Street and Clapham Common in London. So we now have adverts that can read the reactions of those that view them and adapt accordingly, cycling through different images, designs, fonts and colours. With partners and , Saatchi has made advertising history. When future media historians look back they will see 2015 as a landmark year.
There are three key things we should recognise: adverts can read our behaviour, this is based on our emotions rather than website browsing history, and that adverts use this to improve themselves.
What are we to make of this? Is it a bit creepy? The answer is both yes and no. What the campaign represents is an attempt to get closer to us, something that鈥檚 a defining characteristic of the advertising and audience research industries. They want to know us more intimately so as to be able to craft messages that will affect and resonate with us. It鈥檚 an example of what I call 鈥渆mpathic media鈥� because, through reading facial expressions, adverts are able to bypass the guesswork and make direct use of our emotions.
Evolution of the ad
While uncanny and creative, Saatchi鈥檚 adverts are not a threat to privacy. After all, unlike our PCs, phones and tablets, these posters neither know nor care who we are. The adverts鈥� creators say they do not store images or data, and there is little reason to disagree. All their adverts do is react to facial shapes 鈥� the truly creepy stuff is online and in the mobile phone apps tracking our habits. For example, records the Eurosport Player app as having 810 data trackers collecting hardware and software information, but also navigation (where a person visits online), behaviour, visit times, visitor actions and geolocation (where a person is located in real space).
The real genius of the new advert is in using our facial expressions to learn and alter the design of the advert. Through responding to our expressions the adverts have purpose 鈥� an evolutionary urge to improve and become more effective.
This idea of adaptable advertising was foreseen around 100 years ago by advertising luminaries such as and . They insisted advertising should be treated as a science based on collecting information, analysing it and using these insights to improve campaigns. Starch and Hopkins both sought to understand which techniques do and don鈥檛 work in order to make the business of advertising subject to laws of cause and effect. The grandfathers of advertising would be very pleased with today鈥檚 progeny.
Although the logic is old, processing feedback to self-correct in real-time is new. For years, Google has masterfully led the way in how adverts are automatically served based on our interests; self-improving adverts in the physical world are another step forward.
Connecting with the subject
Much of the media coverage surrounding M&C Saatchi鈥檚 adverts lauds it as an . While this is true to an extent, the advert is actually quite mechanical: the advertiser has no understanding of why we are smiling, grimacing or straight-faced, or of what these expressions imply. They simply match the shapes, and react.
So what would intelligent advertising look like? It would have to be able to engage with the context of our lives, in real time. What that consists of is a somewhat philosophical question, but it might encompass our individual life histories, our natural spoken language, human values, politics, current affairs, popular culture, and aesthetic trends 鈥� all topics that human ad creatives consider when putting campaigns together.
Clearly, these adverts don鈥檛 鈥� but others in the advertising business may have the technological muscle to do so. For an insight into tomorrow鈥檚 artificially intelligent advertising, have a look at that promises to 鈥渃ombine the best techniques from machine learning and systems neuroscience to build powerful general鈥憄urpose learning algorithms鈥�. When we remember that Google is first and foremost an advertising company, Deepmind is one to watch.
Then there are the sensors. We will soon wear and carry more sensors and we will have more sensors around us. Empathic media will grant advertisers even more insight into our emotions through how we speak to our mobile devices, more granular facial recognition and emotional insights derived from our heart rates, respiration patterns and how our skin responds to stimuli. And if that sounds far-fetched, remember you鈥檝e just read a true story about adverts that recognise your emotions.
Publication date: 4 August 2015