Garmin to test outdoor facial recognition technology

Garmin is among the first brands to trial an advertising technology with Lord Sugar’s digital outdoor network Amscreen that can serve passersby ads based on their gender.

Amscreen-outdoor-2013.460

The GPS device manufacturer is to initially target female audiences using facial recognition technology to deliver ads promoting its association with Cancer Research fundraiser ‘Race For Life’ in the run-up to summer.

This made possible based on its tie-up with video analytics firm Quividi which recognises the gender of people passing by a screen, serves them with a targeted ad and also relays campaign reporting back to the brand.

Anthony Chmarny, Garmin sponsorship manager, told Marketing Week: “We really want to be able to tailor ads and will be trailing it for as soon as it’s available… If we get some good results we’ll look to extend the [three-month] trial.”

As part of the trial, ads containing ‘gender appropriate’ Garmin products, such as watches, will be served to female audiences across Amscreen’s network of 6,000 outdoor screens.

Amscreen also claims it can further refine targeting at each of its screens sites on an hour-by-hour basis using data gleaned from purchases made at retail outlets at each of the sites, etc, to help brands identify audiences by gender and age (see below).

Amscreen CEO, Simon Sugar, says: “We are all aware that the media industry as a whole is moving more and more towards real-time planning and audience measurement and away from traditional modelled audience metrics hence we are now placing significant investment and resource on delivering this kind of depth of insight.

Earlier this year, outdoor advertising research body Postar re-branded as Route as part of a bid to further accountability to the outdoor channel.

Recommended