14 DAY TRIAL // You probably know how advertising works on TV and on the Internet. Google and other companies pay the owner of the site according to the number of people that accessed that webpage where the ads are, or in television, according to how many people were watching a specific program, during which the commercial breaks were inserted.
But how can a company know how many people are watching a digital billboard on the street? Many people pass by the plasma or LCD panels, but no one knows if they watched it or not. Of course, the advertising companies try really hard to make the commercials more colorful and "alive," with lots of action and movements, since the human eye is naturally attracted by movement.
Until now, they didn't exactly know if you just passed by the plasma screen or if you drooled over their products.
That's about to change today, when Google will unveil, at its corporate headquarters in California, a new invention that will be able to accurately measure the unmeasurable.
The invention of a Queen's University Computing professor presents a unique and inexpensive way for the advertising companies to measure the effectiveness of their messages.
It actually measures how many people are looking at their billboards and screens. It's called eyebox2? and it's a portable device that uses a camera that monitors eye movements in real time and automatically detects when you are looking at it from up to 10 meters away.
No previous calibration is necessary, unlike the old models that also have been ineffective beyond 60 centimeters and only being able to work if people remained stationary, and cost more than $25,000 US. By contrast, the new walk-up-and-use eye is offered at a fraction of that cost.
"Our technology allows interactive real-time "Flow of Attention" measures of customers in the real world. This allows ambient ads run in malls literally to be sold 'by the eyeball," says Dr. Vertegaal. "It enables brick-and-mortar stores such as Wal-mart and Sears to use a revenue model similar to Google's online PageRank and web analytics technologies."
The manufacturer claims that the device is not another spy tool, but rather a sensor similar to those installed in self-opening doors.
"The door sensor doesn't know who you are, and neither does the eyebox2? sensor," he says. "It is a passive technology that simply counts how many people have been looking at a particular ad and for how long, just like a door sensor observes whether people might be interested in going through the doorway."