From the AudienceCount Blog

http://www.audiencecount.com/audience-measurement/nec-digital-signage-ad-targeting-screen/

I ran into this article at The Times Of India webpage and was surprised to see that my long time notion about large companies was correct; these big name companies are working behind the scenes in building their own measurement / targeting tools.

The article talks about how big name NEC has created a technology, which through the use of a camera placed on top of a large Plasma/LCD display can identify the number of males/females and age ranges of the audience. After identifying the audience, the system then automatically targets them with suitable advertisements. NEC Corp said that this new form of targeted advertisements will be featured at an annual festival in Tokyo by Fuji Television network. The festival will run till August 31 and Fuji hopes to draw more than 4 million visitors to beat last year’s record.

When the system identifies the age ranges and gender of the viewers standing in front of the digital screens, the system will tally which of the audience demographics is the largest and will dynamically target ads to them,

For young women in their 20’s it may show ads for the latest iPhone, and women in their 40’s it may show Prada handbags.

“Conventional advertisements may show cell phones for young women to men over 60,” said Hiroshi Takahashi at NEC’s solution business promotion division.

“Changing advertising products in accordance with the viewer would bring advertising closer to the purchaser,” he said.

But the system is seen as having growth potential as companies struggle to win the attention of customers who are increasingly bombarded by advertisements throughout the day.

The underlying technology behind this or any other form of digital signage ad targeting system has to be an audience measurement system; whether it’s a proprietary technology from NEC or a third party technology solution licensed by: Quividi, CognoVision, TruMedia, VideoMining, Xuuk, or Wututu. The main purpose for using these technologies is that there needs to be some face detection in order to process audience demographics in real-time and the only technologies that currently perform these are audience measurement tools. There are obvious alternative applications for these customer centric measurement tools. I’ve read in articles, whitepapers, and blogs that the sales cycle for digital signage deployments is long and for audience measurement probably a lot longer. In the meantime I’d like to see more audience measurement technologies powering large digital signage ad targeting networks, if the sales cycle for audience measurement deployments is long, why not try another channel of distribution.

Please share your comments, ideas, or thoughts on this article.

/24-7PressRelease/ - Lausanne, Switzerland, August 05, 2008 - BlueFire Digital based in Silicon Valley provides Bluetooth and SMS mobile interactivity solutions for the digital signage industry.

BlueFire Digital’s Bluetooth product, BlueFire MS SE, can be integrated or synchronized with Navori Tycoon software via Tycoon’s Mosaic feature. Such integration or synchronization provides delivery of mobile content via Bluetooth, based on content playing on digital sign to mobile phones. With Tycoon software it is now possible to deliver coupon/voucher, wallpaper, ringtones, videos, PDF files and vcards to mobile phones. BlueFire MS SE keeps track of mobile activity for proof-of-download and reporting purposes.

BlueFire Digitals’ BlueFire SMS platform in conjunction with Navori Tycoon’s Boost Media feature enables mobile phones to act as a remote control device. By doing so, Navori users can allow their customers to view specific video clip or other multimedia content instantly via SMS. And best of all, this can be performed while promotional SMS messages are delivered to the customer. Combining the BlueFire SMS platform with Navori Tycoon software can greatly enhance retail and entertainment related digital signage networks.

The applications are abound with Navori Tycoon software and BlueFire Digital’s Bluetooth and SMS interactivity solutions.

For more information about the technology behind this project, please contact Navori SA.

BlueFire Digital’s website can be reached at: http://www.bluefiredigital.com

V ronique Dutoit

Vice President Sales

Navori SA Switzerland
Phone: 0041 21 641 19 60
Fax: 0041 21 641 19 61
http://www.navori.com