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Target marketing is nothing new. Many companies use acquired data to target advertising and awareness to a specific audience group. By collecting demographic and behavioral data, they define the subset of the audience most likely to be interested in a product or service and only send advertisements through targeted social media campaigns, SMS marketing, email marketing and PPC campaigns.
Using facial recognition to target advertising is a newer phenomenon that is gaining traction in different industry verticals, but has yet to be widely adopted by businesses. Even the companies that introduced them, like Walgreens, have faced backlash due to privacy and ethics concerns.
Related: 17 amazing and surprising uses of facial recognition technology
What is facial recognition?
Facial recognition is an application of computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) that identifies human faces in images and video streams.
Today’s machines can build patterns in visual data and take intelligent action based on those learnings. These intelligent algorithms identify either general classes of objects or specific objects in visual data. The insights the programs gather from the data is then leveraged in the form of intelligent decision making.
Nowadays, there are countless applications of AI-based facial recognition in various industries. Examples include biometric identification and verification, home security, automatic photo tagging, healthcare and pharmacy, cashierless checkouts and, of course, targeted advertising.
Facial Recognition Advertising Case Study: Walgreens
Walgreens, the American parapharmacy brand, was one of the first big names to deploy a public offer facial recognition ad campaign thanks to their “intelligent coolers”. These were beverage fridges fitted with facial scanners to determine the age and gender of shoppers and installed in selected locations in 2019. Based on information collected by the cameras, the fridges targeted different advertisements towards different people.
For example, if a beverage brand ran an ad campaign for young women and the face scanner recognized a shopper as a teenage girl, the smart cooler displayed an ad targeting them specifically. The smart coolers also included iris tracking technology to collect data on what items are most watched.
Walgreens, however, faced backlash from the public and legal action under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
But is facial recognition advertising a bad thing? No. Despite outrage over facial recognition technology based on data privacy concerns, we need to understand that strong data privacy laws such as GDPR regulate the use of personal data. If facial recognition technology complies with this, it can be a valuable asset for companies to target their marketing campaigns to a specific audience.
Many companies integrate facial recognition software to improve brand advertising, which is becoming very popular. Companies are also investing in the custom development of facial recognition software that is secure and compliant with data protection regulations.
Related: What Do Walgreens and the Cleveland Cavaliers Have in Common? They pave the way for AI
Why Businesses Should Consider Facial Recognition Advertising
With proper privacy protocols and data protection compliance, using facial recognition for advertising can be a valuable asset for businesses. Studies show that in the near future, facial recognition technology will make significant progress in all sectors.
Companies that use facial recognition to target their marketing efforts to their potential user base can benefit in more ways than one. Here are the many benefits you can get.
1. Define repeat customers
Facial recognition technology can be used by businesses to identify customers or users who frequently make a purchase. This information can provide them with offers and discounts to build customer loyalty. Businesses can analyze the common traits of their regular customers, such as their age and other demographics, to target their marketing to people with similar attributes.
2. Organize targeted product promotions
Businesses can make their advertising campaigns more effective by targeting a specific group of people in their product promotions. Like Walgreens’ smart coolers, most organizations can adopt facial recognition technology to improve their advertising strategy and get the most out of their marketing dollars.
Related: 10 Marketing Strategies to Fuel Your Business Growth
3. Carry out effective trials for the new product
When a new product is launched, companies can use behavioral data collected through facial recognition to test it with a selected audience before rolling it out on a large scale. Several advanced facial recognition software can detect and measure human emotions, assessing how people react and interact with a newly launched product.
4. Assess in-store traffic at different locations
Facial recognition technology can be invaluable for brick-and-mortar businesses with stores in multiple locations. Businesses can use AI-powered systems to count the number of in-store visitors at each location and determine which locations get the most visitors. They can investigate the reasons for slow sales in less crowded places and improve their retail.
Final Thoughts
Facial recognition technology is a game-changer for businesses. This is the future of targeted advertising, and many organizations are gearing up to adopt facial recognition to improve marketing efforts and win competition. With the ability to scan faces and determine key attributes such as age and emotions, facial recognition technology gives businesses critical consumer data that can target product promotions and subsequently improve offers. of products.