Billboards Go High-Tech, but There’s an Ethics Dispute
Jun 2nd, 2008 • Posted in: NewsHidden cameras detect age and gender of person viewing the billboard, customizing message; privacy groups object
NEW YORK
One of the more persistent ethics quandaries in media is the degree to which advertising and its results can be measured. The The New York Times reports on how this factor can be taken to the extreme — with billboards that talk back to the viewer.
Times reporter Stephanie Clifford notes that billboards were perhaps the last vestige of the old media: “The best guesses about viewership numbers come from foot traffic counts or highway reports, neither of which guarantees that the people passing by were really looking at the billboard, or that they were the ones sought out.”
But now, some enterprising entrepreneurs have introduced technology that ostensibly solves that problem. They are equipping billboards with cameras that gather data on people who view them — gender, approximate age, and time spent looking at the display.
Companies venturing into billboard metrics say they are not storing actual images, only recording measurements of viewership. Eventually, marketing firms plan to factor race into the equation.
The goal: to digitally display an ad that will have the maximum impact on the computer-detected viewer — “to show,” writes Clifford, “one advertisement to a middle-aged white woman, and a different one to a teenage Asian boy.”
The startup firms pioneering the practice say that because no actual personal data is gathered, individualized displays do not pose a threat to privacy. But organized privacy groups disagree, according to the Times report, which notes that the placement of surreptitious cameras in public places has caused controversy in a variety of venues.
While some are ready to accept monitoring for security reasons in closed areas or even in public, the notion of surveillance cameras to enhance marketing efforts may pose acceptance problems among the public, notes the report.
Source: New York Times, May 31.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, May 19 — Related Newsline story, May 5 — Related Newsline story, May 5 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 28 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 21.
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