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Grocery Store "Smart Shelves" Will Identify Customers, Show Targeted Ads
cagraham writes "Snack company Mondelez International (maker of Oreos, Trident, Cadbury eggs) will introduce so-called 'smart shelves' into store checkout aisles beginning 2015. The shelves will use Microsoft's Kinect software, in addition to other tech, to identify shoppers age and sex, and will then use that info to deliver demographically tailored advertisements. The shelves will be able to track engagement, monitor how long customer's watch each ad, and offer discounts if a customer is considering a purchase (weight sensors will tell the machine if you pick up a product). Mondelez says the software will only use and collect aggregate data, and will not record any video or photos."
Especially once we figure out how to 'convince' it to give us the best discount on everything.
Humans are lousy at reading humans, machines programmed by humans and used on the cheap will be relatively easy to fool.
The ones used in mini bars or self check outs don't work that well so how much false positives will there be
now we can see if we can haggle with robots for discounts on stuff!
You throw a targeted ad at me and it just might be an offer to contract with me, and you just might be bound by terms you didn't mean to be bound by.
the condom section is going to go nuts....
Can't we go anywhere without being subjected to advertisements?
Now you'll have to keep a selection of masks (Guy Fawkes, George Bush, Muhammad Ali...) in the cart and switch them as you wander the aisles. Or maybe wearing a burka will be enough.
I for one have no interest in such targeted advertising, and until they become ubiquitous I'll avoid any store that has these.
Can you imagine where this will go? Shelf notices that you're overweight and you picked up a candy bar? Screen says, "Are you sure you want to buy that?" This will work great until someone puts a sticker over the sensor bar.
I can guarantee that I'll start carrying headphones to the store with me if that starts happening. Actually, given those awful televisions running constant ads that some stores have, I should probably already start doing that.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Yet.
Authority questions you. Return the favor. -- d474
So, this technology could be used in the xbox it self?
Is it already? I'm not sure if it shows adds at all as I don't own any.
My admittedly limited understanding of the business is that margins and profits are very tight. I can't image something like this pulling its weight in terms of cost-benefit.
. . . and suddenly masks will be deemed a threat to Free Enterprise, and wearing one will put you on a terrorism watch list.
Anyway, you'd better wear gloves too, because shopping cart handles will eventually have DNA sensors and galvanic skin response detectors.
It'll never happen, but I'm sure they've been used as an end-around credit card privacy laws. I remember when my local grocer first introduced them. The prices of everything went up overnight, then you needed their card to get the same old prices. The thought that they might make advertising to me even more interactive isn't at all appealing.
And, as for just switching grocery stores, I don't know where most of you live but here in KC I only have 2 practical choices (without a long drive).
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Sure, I believe that. Actually I think the NSA will be putting back doors into it so it very much will record what we do. It'll catch shop lifters too.
[Reminds me of this]
Home Depot (HD) has these irritating security cameras that view/display you at eye level, beep at you 4X each time they detect you and undoubtedly send all gathered imagery to the NSA. They are positioned one camera every 10 feet of aisle, so walking back and forth stirs up a beeping frenzy. Got detected/beeped at about 200X browsing the drill bit aisle at HD. Very Irritating.
Obama need not know when I buy a router bit for my portable drill.
Oh no. It's just they're terribly comfortable. I think everyone will be wearing them in the future.
That technology will come later?
I don't know of a single person that wouldn't enjoy being constantly bombarded by directed ads while shopping; it just adds to the total "experience?".
It would assist in a vandalism charge, just like it would if you used it on the cash registers, in-store speaker system, or vending machines. With the closed-circuit surveillance the stores already have for shoplifting, the trial would be speedy, and you'd likely be found liable for the replacement cost of the device, plus penalties.
But hey, at least you'd have given a clear message to the store manager: You're a psychopath who carries a taser to intentionally damage someone else's property at the slightest provocation. That was the message you wanted to send, right?
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
If the advertising becomes really bubbled I can see an issue where attractive people are shown healthy products and ugly people are shown unhealthy products because that's what their respective profiles are probably going to indicate that they want... It's like the Search Engine Bubble (http://dontbubble.us/) - except for advertising.
This trend is obviously unhealthy...
Since it's based on the Kinnect software, will it recognize when it's being flipped off?
Time to start wearing burkas?
Some advanced technology such as this could be used.
Isn't there something like ad-blackout happening?
Like ads showing in whatever fashion trying to catch attention and the saturation with ads is to high that any impulse intended to be created by ads is suppressed and blocked out.
Maybe it's just me if one tries to influence, I resist and the more they try, the more I get turned off. It's just no fun getting "guided" all the time by some folks trying hard to manipulate.
I seem to remember that was coming to a store near you several years ago. Sensors embedded in the aisles would trigger ads to be played on the monitor as the cart came into range. At the time, I remember thinking what a shame it would be if the monitor got cracked as I throwing a can of beans into the cart. In any case, I've never seen these actually in use.
They promised to not use your personal data until....they changed TOS. Then they promised to use it only for ads....until they changed TOS. Then they promised not to f**** you......until they changed TOS.
Stereotypes are a crude biologically-formed statistical analysis, stored in cultural memory and transmitted through oral and theatrical tradition.
These systems will use a highly-refined statistical analysis, stored in The Cloud and transmitted through wired and wireless networks.
Both will ultimately determine that people who have spent time in Australia are more likely to buy iocaine powder than a Sicilian. The latter system will just be able to tell you exactly how much more likely.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Yes, it does. I think it was Rob Malda that requested that feature from the captcha vendor.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Guess I'll be carrying a can of spray-paint or a pad of Post-It notes with me when I go to the store, starting in 2015.
#IDontWannaBeTracked
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
"... Mondelez International ... will introduce so-called 'smart shelves' into store checkout aisles ... identify shoppers age and sex, and will then use that info to deliver demographically tailored advertisements ... will ... monitor how long customer's watch each ad
>cd /local/mnt/SmartShelf
>cat logfile
02-Mar-2015 11:45:23 New subject detected; Age: 20s; Sex: M; Ad chosen: 22756
02-Mar-2015 11:45:47 Status: Failure; Code: 10
02-Mar-2015 11:46:39 New subject detected; Age: 60s; Sex: F; Ad chosen: 66563
02-Mar-2015 11:46:59 Status: Failure; Code: 22
02-Mar-2015 11:52:02 New subject detected; Age: 10s; Sex: F; Ad chosen: 74453
02-Mar-2015 11:52:47 Status: Failure; Code: 15
>cat err_codes
10: Subject oogling Cosmo girl's boobs
15: Subject distracted by texting
22: Subject fumbling with checkbook
Mondelez says the software will only use and collect aggregate data, and will not record any video or photos.
...at first. Later on we make no promises.
Seriously, if this can be abused it will be.
Property exists because the concept benefits society, not to give business owners free reign to act like dickheads.
Yeah, you're right, tasering is OTT. Spray-painting, OTOH, would be reasonable.
I have the dubious pleasure of being exposed to some of this tech, what's amusing is it does know who I am, but insist that I am also married.
In fact every record I search on the Inet (pipl, spokeo, etc) all say I am married.
I used to drink my share, but I don't recall ever getting that drunk so where is this marriage coming from?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
"Grocer cards"? "Loyalty cards"? "Discount cards"? Let's call them what they are. TRACKING cards.
Sure, they may not turn the information over to your health insurance provider... yet. But they do use the cards to track purchases in aggregate. That is the entire reason for their existence.
So let me get this straight... anyone you think is acting like a dickhead no longer has the right to own property? Well gee, with such defined morality as that, I guess we can dispense with the whole "rule of law" thing outright.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Spray-painting would still be vandalism, just like it would be if you painted the cash register displays, store windows, or product packaging. It's just vandalism with less shrapnel and more odor.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
this is consumer capitalism at its finest. No longer do we care about making a particularly good or useful product anymore. the focus is determining who is looking at the product, and custom tailoring a set of deceptive or manipulative advertising based on gender and age. Its desparation.
Ive worked at a grocery store, so i can tell you this kind of crap is pervasive.. ultimately most people are so sick and tired of consumer capitalisms model of tricking us into buying garbage, that its all they can do to enter $Grocery_store and purchase the goods they need with a minimum of hassle. Grocery chains use different kinds of music and even sizes of floor tiles throughout the building to control shoppers walking speeds, they run vanilla airfresheners in the bakery department to ensure you always think something fresh is cooking, and they only fire up the 40 bird rotisserie during dinner hours. yearly, or more frequently, they also decide to completely revamp the store and put all the goods in different locations. if you make it past this insanity and find the toilet paper you originally wanted, you'll have to fight a kind of mathematic jigsaw puzzle more sinister than reaganomics that largely just ends up making you buy what grocers want you to. the asinine barking video adverts on some shelves already exist. theyre triggered by motion and they drive shoppers, in my observation, into a bath-salts rage most of the time. whats worse is all this stuff in a grocery store comes together as a 'perfect storm' during food-based holidays. the music, the smells, the colors, and everything designed to get normal shoppers to spend a few bucks more, sends people into sectarian violence during thanksgiving. I've seen customers literally beat eachother in the aisles for the last tin of pumpkin pie filling without so much as considering the 3 pallets of generic brand we keep in the far hinterlands near the milk. targeting things to customers wont work as well as you think.
Stockers. stockers drive huge wooden pallets of cereal and such up and down aisles for restock. most of the boxes have smiling faces on them, so expect 200 or so encounters from the same middle aged man who never touches the product as he rolls down aisle 6 to be broken up, and placed on a shelf. these pallets are pretty big too, so dont expect third shift stockers to care that much if your camera gets nailed by 2000lbs of slow-moving watermelon on its way to produce. these guys routinely rip off coupon dispensers and colored banners hanging out of the aisles, and whatever ends up on the floor after 3rd shift usually gets thrown in the trash by first 1st shift clean crews.
those loyalty cards. dont think for a minute your information isnt getting added from the advert to the card, or isnt somehow related, because it absolutely is. The card seriously knows more about who you are as a person than your closest loved ones, and is used to routinely provide a pavlovian treat to bad customers in order to get them to become good ones. the popularity of an item drives inversely its sale price, so expect the AI from the advert system to factor into this as well as restock levels and future pricing.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Oh no, it won't say that.. It will go something like this...
"Mr. Jones! You need to buy this month's issue of "insert title here" or I'm going to tell Mrs. Jones on Isle 3 about you... "
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Will they also track the frequency at which people "accidentally" smash these things?
And what if we don't want that kinda tracking? I have store cards they save me alot of money. But here,s the kicker Pssttt its MY choise.
Jack of all trades,master of none
I'm glad that I buy my food online with Adblock+.
Without an adblocker invisibiliy cloak, I won't set a foot in there
Don't walk, Run away as fast as you can, otherwise you will fall victim to some scam. Oh and guess what they now have you on video and will pass it to every other marketing organization in existence and you will be the permanent target of every scammer there is. This will be the new malware.
They're called finger cots.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Psychopath is a pretty strong word to describe a minor act of rebellion. I'd say it's "normal" if not rational to rebel in some way against the ever encroaching attempts at manipulation and control.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
Sometimes it's best to not bother anybody.
Again. You know you might be interested in some of our other feminine hygiene products just down the aisle. I can just imagine this wafting down the aisles as I try to get to produce.
They already know I'm a middle aged single geek. How many more erectile dysfunction and over 50 dating site ads can they throw at me? And here's a clue for you ad programmers. If I need the erectile dysfunction pills, I don't need the dating sites and if I need the dating sites, I don't need the erectile dysfunction pills. Now get off my lawn!
Because if you target ads depending on what the customer usually purchases, e.g. Colgate toothpaste it's useless to show ads for another brand.
Throw in ads for stuff that the customer doesn't buy and maybe it will have some effect. But when I shop I don't give a crap about ads in the store. In addition to that most ads are so stupid that you just feel embarrassed by them.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Yes, lets have random candy advertisements flung at diabetics and ads for peanut butter shown to people who would die if they ate it, just because they happened to walk by the shelf (which is not hard to do in a grocery store). The people handing out free samples of crap food that I don't want are annoying enough. I don't need to have the shelves themselves haranguing me about what to buy! The entire store is one giant ad already! Why do you think things come in brightly-colored, shiny packages? They get your attention! You learn color patterns and associate foods with certain labels. And if things are on sale, it generally says on an eye-catching tag under the item. Why do I need a shelf telling me that Oreos are on sale when I can see the bright red "SALE" tag right under the bright blue Oreos package? Geez!
A minor act of rebellion is shopping elsewhere, writing a letter, or complaining to the store manager. I don't think we should consider "normal" behavior to include assault with a deadly weapon.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
What does the fox say?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE
I was looking for someone to make the point you did... ~;-)
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
~;-)
+1
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Because they have had these here for years and the closest thing to vandalism I've seen happen is that one bar quit using the advertising service but kept the displays and started piping ESPN to the screens instead, so you could have a piss and keep up with sports while you did it.
I can only imagine its a code/safety/insurance thing, but the active displays I have seen in bathrooms all use stainless steel boxes with high-impact plastic fronts and behind-the-wall wiring. You could destroy it if you wanted, but it would take pretty serious effort.
To figure out how they power them and disable every one I can. Because I can tell you the stores will not provide the power for these things. They'll be battery powered more than likely.
Too bad Mondelez can't figure out how to package Triscuits without breaking 1/3 or so of every box.
Do XS condoms exist? Me and a few friends have been taping some hidden camera fun lately and one of our "pranks" was to go to stores and (somewhat loudly) ask for extra small condoms but none seem to have any...
You need to learn about "vanity sizing" http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_sizing. It's not just for women's clothing (or even men's clothing).
business owners have every right to act like dickheads. Just like you. I'm not sure why you think otherwise,
Of course I'm not sure why advertising makes then a dickhead in the first place.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Remember, this will be used against you, and already has been.
So, buy a dazzle paint mask, wear a reversible hat you never wear, walk with a funny gait, and slouch.
And pay in traceable $100 bills. Oh, wait ... stick to $20.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I can't think of any resonable justification for a "right" to act like a dickhead.
In particular, a society would have to be absurd to protect people's means to be a dickhead.
So, if you want to try to maximise your profit with intrusive, targeted advertising, go ahead. But don't expect me to pay for the justice system to protect you when someone comes along and disables the equipment you use to do this.
Grocery checker was indeed an honorable profession. But, it is going away. While being a butler is also honorable, very few need or can afford them. If you can do your own checkout faster (and I can) that is perfectly honorable too.
Just because a job existed at one time doesn't mean it should exist forever. No more firemen or brakemen on trains - we've automated that. And checkout has been automated now, so we should expect the job of checker to fade away as well.
They don't care about my message and I will quite likely get a coupon for cheap batteries for the taser.
I'd say it's "normal" if not rational to rebel in some way against the ever encroaching attempts at manipulation and control.
Like shopping in a different store?
I'd understand vandalizing a display you were forced to interact with, but essentials can be bought at the ubiquitous stores that litter any particular suburb, and many aren't even advanced enough to accept credit card payments. I really don't see a reason to enter a store you don't like, seek out the features that you don't like, and vandalize them.
So, I pick up a thingy after being offered a discount on thingies by the All-Seeing-Eye(tm). How is that discount connected to the bar code on the my particular thingy so that the correct price is charged at the checkout? The article says, "custom coupons can be displayed" which is not overly useful at the checkout. The only mechanism I can see is printing a paper docket with an alternate code... and these printers are doomed to fail routinely, need paper and dilute profits any additional sale.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
might now be able to figure out how to identify criminals...
And what's worse, they make me less likely to buy things. Some of this aversion, of course, is due to the targetting algorithm thinking I want to be showered with ads related to anything I ever googled for or looked up on the web.
Using Kinect? Good god, how expensive.
With that much money (which is just for the checkout lanes), I bet they could:
-Put RFID tags in all their value cards
-Put RFID readers on all the shelves and aisles
When they require their suppliers to put RFID stickers on all their products, they can now monitor all their inventory in real time. They can track merchandise for shrink purposes. They can track where their shoppers go, where they stop, what merchandise they handle. Combine that information with their purchasing information from the value card and I'm sure you could do all kinds of targeted advertising.
Want to actually display targeted advertising in the store? Put it in the shopping carts. Not the baskets, not the shelves. Carts to encourage more purchases. Any ads displayed on the cart automatically apply at checkout. Heck, now that you have screens built into the carts, and the cart knows the content of the cart, you can show the shopper a running estimated subtotal with tax and coupons.
Plus it opens you up scan-free checkout. Basket reports to the register what's in it, cashier verifies, done.
Yeah, but there's nothing wrong with vandalism per se.
I think that's a valid argument. However, sometimes when I'm low on petrol I'll pull in to what seems like a ubiquitous gas station and after I enter my credit card, a speaker suddenly starts blaring advertisements at me. I feel like my urge to yank out the speaker wire is justified by the obnoxiousness of the advertisement. I fear something similar is what's coming to shelves near me.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
My spelling/usage stands corrected... But remember Mrs Jones will get half, unless a prenup was signed...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Haven't we heard: "the software will only use and collect aggregate data" before?
/steve