Shoppers at the new International Finance Center Mall in Seoul can find their way around the four-story complex by approaching one of 26 information kiosks. When they do, they also are being watched.
Just above each kiosk's LCD touch screen sit two cameras and a motion detector. As a visitor is recorded, facial-identity software estimates the person's gender and age.
Adds directly aimed at the person
The system's makers, two companies from South Korea's SK Holdings conglomerate, plan to allow advertisers to tailor interactive ads on the kiosk by those attributes. A 40-something man looking up a restaurant on the kiosk may be shown an ad for a steakhouse in the mall, while a 20-something woman might get one for a clothing store. Shoppers will be able to interact with the ads with hand motions.
System set to start early in 2013
The system, which is in data-collection phase now and will begin full operation early next year, is the first of its kind in South Korea and one of the first in the world. Since the mall opened early last month, it recorded 1.8 million faces at or near the kiosks. Most shoppers were recorded several times as they visited the kiosks around the mall.
Advertisers get to know who they reach
"Advertisers in big public spaces only have a general idea of who they're reaching and they can only target ads at big audience segments," said Ahn Jae-heon, a senior planner for SK Marketing & Co., which is running the system. "This can offer more focus and customization for them." The company, known as SK M&C, is taking advantage of advances in cameras, processing power and software that have enabled facial recognition to migrate from high-end security systems to everyday smartphones and motion sensors. Sister company SK Telecom created the software behind the system.
Executives at the companies said they won't record interactions at a kiosk or store any of the images. They also won't ask for any personal information from people as they use it. South Korean privacy laws prevent the companies from collecting personal information from customers without permission.
A system for the future?
Similar work is happening around the world. In Australia, Millward Brown, a market research company, is using webcams to monitor facial reaction to TV commercials. A Nashville ad agency, Redpepper, is marketing a system for retailers and restaurants to offer deals to regular customers who are spotted by face-recognizing cameras and allow an automatic location check-in via Facebook.The kiosk system at the mall has pushed SK Telecom deeper into facial recognition technology than the company's previous work.
Database is already being built up
To prepare for the mall's opening, the company created an image database of 5,000 people with their sex and age identified and about 1,000 pieces of information about the facial shape, wrinkles, distance between eyes. When a person approaches one of the kiosks, a camera tracks their movement while the system compares the face against the database, assigns a gender and age and records it.
In the main atrium of the mall, SK M&C is already demonstrating what is possible with interactive advertising with a two-story LED screen that has cameras and motion sensors around it. The company developed brief videogames in which people in the atrium can interact with figures on the screen. In one, a woman appears to spray the screen with water, which people in the atrium can then wipe off by waving their arms.
