Advertising Screen Tailors Ads to Audience

An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist are running an article about a system which tailors the ads displayed on a screen according to what BlueTooth gadgets people are carrying. A bit like the billboards in Minority Report ." Awkward situations created by devices like this will be scenes in the sit-coms of tomorrow.

Comments

Learn by repetition

[LiquidCoooled]

How many times do you need to hear/see an advert for it to sink in?

This system is geared for that once only viewing:

As each passing device has a unique Bluetooth signal, this enables the screen to identify different individuals passing by. It builds a record of the adverts those people have been previously been shown to make sure messages are not repeated.

Surely advertisers want you to be paying enough attention to get the product information but to not drill it in 500 times a day.

Seems like a good idea, but the privacy advocates will go bananas (and demand it dismantled when all thats needed is to take out your bluteeth)

Customized advertisements are awesome

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The problem with advertisements now is that the vast majority of them don't appeal to me. I am a white male age 18-35. That doesn't mean that I fall into any particular demographic, it just means that I may be vaguely interested in some things that others are perhaps also interested. Bzzt. I am an individual!

So what this purports to do is give me information that I am interested in. Not information that "my generation" needs. Information underload is done away with and I now have interesting data customized for me. This is great because I no longer have to endure GLH infomercials and can get back to enjoying Lean Mean Fat-grilling Machine infomercials.

Can't wait for video analysis

[coinreturn]

Imagine a video camera on the advertisement that spots you're bald and loads an ad for Rogaine or one that determines you're fat and loads an ad for NutriSystem, or that you have no fashion sense and loads clothing ads!

Re:Can't wait for video analysis

[KiloByte]

Didn't they use pressure plates for pushing weight loss pills for those who weighted over a given threshold and other ads for everyone else, a while ago?

Probably not going to work if you are educated

[Raleel]

... on the nuances of bluetooth. First off, it's likely that it will only work on discoverable devices. These are getting increasingly small in number, as cellphone companies and others learn to disable that by default.

Secondly, I'd be interested to see what information they plan on using. For instance, I have a Motorola V551.. so I have a cell phone. Now, my cellphone happens to have a name of Diwani (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwani), so will I get Arab language stuff? I know another person who's cell phone is named Turd Ferguson...

It may be good for a laugh :)

"Anonymity assured"

[Iphtashu Fitz]

FTFA: "It can uniquely identify devices but keeps the person anonymous."

Sorry, but with all the identity theft, credit card skimming, government intrusion into privacy, etc. I find it hard to believe that such a system will provide "assured" anonymity for very long.

That's nothing - wait for my RFID ad device...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

That's nothing. Just wait until I finish perfecting my device that will target advertising based on what RFID tags you are foolishly carrying around on you. Bwaahahahah!

MPAA report

[Dr. Eggman]

*massive blue face appears on the silver screen*

Attention theater attendants: The occupant in seat 4a, row 5 has a bluetooth enabled video camera.

SEIZE HIM!


Now please turn off all electronic devices, or else, and enjoy our feature presentation!

Where have we seen it before?

[Moraelin]

Oh, right, that's how the advertising bubble (driving the dot-com bubble) worked. Let's subject the user to hundreds of thousands of different, but still untargetted, ads, and surely he'll end up buying everything. Right? Heck, instead of having just 1 ad on the main page, let's have a dozen different ads on each page. It's good if the user gets a lot of product information, right?

Needless to say, it didn't work that way. Being bombarded by a lot of untargetted stuff just got people to mentally filter those out. Whereas in the days of 1 (and always the same) banner on the main page, people actually clicked on them, nowadays most of us don't even notice them any more.

Plus, you know what kind of a downward slope that started, as each generation of untargetted ads had to be more obtrussive and in-your-face to be noticed at all. Pop-ups, full-page ads, layers on top of the actual page, became actually necessary because that bombardment actually desensitized people to the point where a normal banner isn't even noticed any more.

So, I dunno, it may be that the privacy advocates _are_ right there. Whether you're worried about the privacy or not, the problem still is that it's for naught. It's a rehash of an idiotic idea we've already seen before, and which _didn't_ actually provide any actual benefit. Not for the ad providers, not for the web masters, not for the users. I can even understand risking your privacy and a slippery slope in return for some actual benefit, but it seems stupid to me to just give it up when there are no benefits whatsoever.