Get to know who is watching the message on your screens

Combining digital signage and cameras can create new and interesting opportunities. There are already systems that make it possible to detect how many people that pass by a specific location. However the possibilities of combining cameras and digital signage seem limitless. This blog post discusses some of these new opportunities.

Everyone knows that it is crucial to measure the number and behavior of visitors to websites. Doing so makes it is possible to modify the messages for maximum impact. Also in order to decide what an advertiser should pay for the advertising space, measuring what has been seen, how much it has been viewed, and preferably who has been viewing, is becoming increasingly important. In web based systems this is quite simple to achieve. It is mostly a matter of counting the clicks and to register what pages have been visited.

In digital signage systems it is interesting to know how many people and what individual persons have viewed a specific sign and message. By using a camera combined with sophisticated face detection techniques it is possible to detect that a person is watching the screen and to make a qualified guess about the gender of the person watching.

The information that can be obtained from a system knowing who and how many watching and at what time can be used for several purposes. Here are some examples:

• The information that can be obtained from a system knowing who and how many watching and at what time can be used for several purposes. Here are some examples:

• A message can be triggered to start when someone is detected to stand in front of and watching the screen. This means that a video clip or slideshow is started at the right time. Especially when it comes to longer video clips or other long sequences of slides, it may be frustrating to have to wait for the message to start all over. This kind of detection solves this classical problem.

• By deciding the gender of the person watching the screen the message can be adapted to the viewer. Digital signage is very much about conveying the right message at the right time to the right customer. While the applications described above are used to adapt the messages shown to the viewer of the screen there are other applications that can be used to log the efficiency of the screen:

• Getting to know how many people have actually watched the screen makes it possible to know the value of the advertising space. This may be used to find the most favorable locations for digital signage. This is especially interesting in pilot systems where decisions need to be done on how to proceed with the project when it comes to choice of locations and other strategies.

• Owners of digital signage screens who can measure the number of viewers can adapt what to charge from the advertisers to the true value of the advertising space.

• Knowing at what time of the day most people are watching the screen can be used to set the correct price tag of the advertising space at different hours.

• Detecting the number of viewers of specific advertising spots makes it possible to determine the impact of different content and to adapt future commercials for best results. 

• Knowing the gender of the majority of viewers can be used to determine what content is best suited to be used on individual screens.

By knowing who is watching the screen, the message can be adapted to the viewer.

As the technology for determining who is actually watching a screen gets more and more sophisticated an endless amount of possibilities will become available to make commercial messages more efficient and to optimize the use of the advertising space. By the end of the day it is the advertising space that represents the true asset when it comes to advertising.

 

Lars-Ingemar Lundström

Documentation and Training Manager, MultiQ