Is New Technology Improving Advertising?
Posted: Wednesday 22 February, 2012
Colin Miller
The advent of technologies such as facial recognition and augmented reality has offered marketers an entirely new dimension in which to bring digital magic into the physical world. As these technologies become more mainstream and are integrated into consumer technology such as smartphones and tablets, the opportunities for innovative advertising becomes greatly enhanced.
Recent campaigns from Tic Tac, Starbucks, Plan UK, Jell-O and Net-A-Porter all utlised these technologies with varying results and success. These campaigns provided users with an engaging and interactive experience that differs from traditional billboard and poster advertisements.
Tic Tac recently used Augmented Reality to enhance its “Shake It Up” campaign by offering fans a mobile app that provides additional, enhanced content in conjunction with printed ads in magazines and on billboards. The printed ads displayed facts such as “84% of people always sleep on the same side of the bed,” scanning this printed ad with the “Shake It Up” app on the smartphone displays an Augmented Reality game whereby users had to roll a character from one side of the bed to another to avoid falling objects. Tic Tac also used three large billboards in New York’s Times Square to tie in with its interactive campaign. These billboards displayed personalised images of the user in Times Square when they viewed the billboard through the Tic Tac app on their smartphone, these images could then be shared through Facebook.
An altogether more controversial application of new technology in advertising appeared in Plan UK’s recent “Because I’m a Girl” campaign to raise awareness and money for girls in developing countries. The installation of a £30,000 display unit in London’s Oxford Street was used as a test for the latest in facial recognition advertising which is reported to have a 90% accuracy rate. The installation recognises women’s faces and then showed them the full fourty second advertisement, whereas men were only shown a brief clip of the ad and then directed to the Plan UK website to donate. The idea behind the campaign was to show men “a glimpse of what it’s like to have basic choices taken away.”
Both of these campaigns show what is now possible as new technology becomes more accessible and consumer friendly, the question is; do we need this kind of enhanced advertising or are we exposed to enough ads already? What do you think?
