From the beginning of time, advertising agencies have researched and discovered the many ways to interact, persuade and connect with the audience, in hopes to find a method that will linger and trigger their desires to purchase and consume its products. It began with logical persuasion, where the company would practically word vomit advantages of their product to your face in hopes that its customers would believe them (like in this vintage Coca Cola commercial).

Then, more recently, through the realization that in the battle of logic vs. emotion, emotion triumphs indefinitely, the endless emotional, heartbreaking, inspiring campaigns began. Many of such emotional commercials, due to the uprising of youtube and the internet, became viral, international sensations that escalated the impact  and desire for more advertisements that simply “tugged at our heartstrings”. Some of the most prominent commercials include P&G’s “Thank you, Mom” campaign commercials, Thai Life Insurance’s commercials, and the Dove Real Beauty Sketch Campaign. Even now, these commercials still allow customers to deeply immerse into the emotions, and thus tying the connection between these feelings/concepts to the brands itself.

Now, with TiVO and streaming shows on the internet, consumers and their interaction between media commercials have  slowly diminished, and TV/Radio/print advertisements are becoming less and less efficient. As well, people are continuously becoming non-believers of traditional advertisements, claiming that the ideas and concepts that ads are portraying are fake, digitalized, and exaggerated. and marketing agencies have began to search for more effective ways to connect and interact with its target market. Now, companies are becoming more and more “interactive” with its customer base, creating campaigns such as Lululemon’s #sweatlife campaign, or DDB Canada’s “Our Food, Your Questions”, and Canadian Tourism Commission’s Keep Exploring Campaign. Interactive marketing allows customers to truly witness, for themselves, what the company values and believe. It not only allows its target market to observe a more realistic and genuine view of its advertisements, but it also helps its consumers, in a sense, “create” the company’s brand.

Ever wondered what it would feel like to be watched by the advertising agencies and have them cater their ads to your hobbies and interests? To stand in line, or wait for your gas to fill up and look at advertisements that are specifically shown to you? Well, now you can.

Tesco PLC, a british grocery superstore and the second largest retailer in the world, is currently in the midst of introducing in-store facial recognition machines at their gas stations and convenient stores. Amscreen, the company that is working together with Tesco to create these digital screens with built in cameras that will detect and study  customers’ facial features to determine one’s approximate age and gender, allowing advertisers to then customize the ads presented to them. According to the company, these new innovations will not store or record any data, as it purely uses characteristics of the individual’s face.

However, the idea as a whole sits slightly uneasily with me. Although the new technology allows for more specific and efficient advertisements, and will allow marketers to cater to a more specific target market, as this innovation begins to mature, companies might begin to evolve the original idea and manipulate its usage to detect personal data, and store  personal information. Similar to the ability for the government to toggle with our phones and electronic devices, this new innovative concept, if pursued, might end up giving the government and other technologically inclined individuals to penetrate our world a little more than it already has via our electronic devices. Ultimately, as our generations’ technology advances, our own privacy begins to depreciate.

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