Increasing technology’s value
Audience measurement data can help compare the performance of different ads on the same screen.
Facial detection technology is not designed to determine specific individuals’ identities, but rather who they are generally.
The integration of such audience measurement technologies as camera sensors, facial detection hardware and ‘beacons’ into digital displays can be compared to, say, the integration of satellite radios and remote diagnostics systems into vehicles. That is to say, when the ‘smaller’ technology becomes part of the ‘bigger’ technology, it enhances it and increases its value. For digital display manufacturers, this means they can sell their products at slightly higher prices, with the promise of improved performance.
Digital signage, after all, is not useful unless it displays eye-catching and appealing content. No one is impressed or excited by a blank screen!
Thus, to maximize the effectiveness of digital signage is to optimize its content to deliver the strongest impression and inspire action. To do so, it is very important to know about the audience that content is meant to reach.
Recorded characteristics can include a viewer’s mood, gender, age and dwell time.
Digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising, for example, is generally intended to help sell products and services to certain types of consumers. If a digital signage network operator can anonymously identify and target specific consumer demographics, then the displays immediately become more attractive to advertisers.
The term ‘anonymously’ is key. The proliferation of intelligent audience measurement technologies has given many people pause with respect to privacy issues, but their concerns are unfounded. Facial detection technology, for example, is not designed to determine specific individuals’ identities, but rather who they are generally, e.g. happy or sad, old or young, dwelling or moving quickly. Such anonymous information is more useful than personal data anyway, as it helps illuminate broad demographic trends, which content managers can then act upon.
Using the ‘who’ to inform the ‘how’
Audience measurement technology is being implemented today because it can dramatically increase the efficiency and efficacy of digital signage. Network operators, content creators, advertisers and marketers all want to know who, if anyone, is looking at their screens, for how long, and what their reactions are.
Such questions have been asked for as long as digital signage has been around and now there are finally answers. A screen may light up a room, but it takes integrated audience measurement to ensure operators are not left in the dark!
Brice McPheeters is director of customer experience (CX) for NanoLumens, which manufactures light-emitting diode (LED) displays, and Mike Neel is head of marketing and sales for AdMobilize, which develops audience measurement software and hardware. For more information, contact them via e-mail at bmcpheeters@nanolumens.com and mike.neel@admobilize.com.
