Smartsigns that spy on you
star-techcentral.com
SAN FRANCISCO: Less than a year ago, when Steven Spielberg’s harrowing sci-fi movie Minority Report hit the screens, one of the most memorable images was of gigantic billboards that addressed pedestrians by name as they walked past.
Now, a few months later, that vision of the future has arrived alongside the bustling highways of Silicon Valley. The large video screens look little different from thousands of others around the world that bombard drivers with bright moving images as they speed along highways, or crawl along in semi-permanent traffic jams.
But the new billboards, developed and operated by Alaris Media Networks, conceal a clever secret behind their high-tech exterior.
The so-called “smartsigns” are equipped with special technology that picks up which radio stations are being played by the passing cars. Then the Internet-connected boards instantly access a vast databank of information about the people who typically listen to those stations and matches the electronic ads to detailed listener profiles.
The ads take advantage of the sophisticated demographic information that each station collects about its listeners in order to increase the effectiveness of advertising.
“It’s the way of the future,” said Tom Langeland, president of Alaris. “We can change the message every hour. It provides accountability.
“The world is becoming a more competitive place, and advertising dollars have been a huge, misplaced factor. Advertisers don’t know where their money is going,” he said.
With the new technology, if the freeway is packed during morning rush hour with listeners of radio news shows, demographic information might recommend advertising luxury cars. If lunchtime traffic is dominated by listeners of radio stations popular among soccer moms, cleaning supplies might flash on the billboard.
The system uses a “consumer monitoring system” developed by Mobiltrak of Arizona to pick up radio waves “leaked” from the antennas of up to 90% of all cars passing by and pinpoint the stations being played.
While privacy advocates say that the collection of information is so generalised and anonymous that it offers no real threat to privacy, there is no doubting that the billboards show how technology can be used to target individuals for marketing purposes.
“I can tell you how much money they spent on fast food in the last week. I can tell you where they are shopping,” said Phyllis Neill, chief operating officer of Mobiltrak. “I can tell you what percentage of them were married and shop at Petsmart and made more than US$100,000 a year and potentially could come to Office Max in the next six months. We have only just begun to scratch the surface of what the technology can do.”
Advertisers are already examining how to use mobile phone technology to offer “location-based advertising.”
Because most phones will soon be equipped with a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) tracking system, this would allow advertisers to target consumers with adverts just as they are about to walk past their stores.
In Minority Report, billboards targeted individuals through realtime retina scans. Tracking mobile phones could offer a similar result.
Experts say that only public outcry over invasions of privacy can place limits on the unbridled march of technology.
“I don’t think it’s really so much about stopping technology or pulling the shades a little tighter,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Centre in Washington DC.
“It’s about making sure there are safeguards on the personal information that businesses collect.” – dpa |
