Shop with your eyes, not with your hands

Everyone has their own way of shopping. Some like to walk in, product in mind and walk straight out in five minutes flat; while others enjoy browsing, never entirely sure what they might leave with. For the latter group, advertisers are in a never ending battle to manipulate what people might buy; and for the former, they are constantly looking to break shopper’s nerves of steel and have them purchase something extra at a last minute impulse.

It appears, however, that the consumer battle has tipped in the advertisers favour, as interactive advertising takes a leap in the right direction. The latest technological developments at Lancaster University provide the advertising world with the Sideways project. The system allows for a single camera to track the faces and eye movements of up to fourteen people simultaneously. This can allow for the adverts to adapt to the product preferences of each individual shopper.

 

While this technology is still relatively new, previous attempts could only focus on one person at a time and the calibration process was “time-consuming and annoying.” With this newer, simpler system however, senior researcher Andreas Bulling told the BBC that he expected “this technology to become available widely in the near future”, possibly in shops within five year.

So what might we see in the future of shopping? Will we see brighter and bolder ads, images and creatives screaming for our attention? Or will adverts become more subtle, with each individual consumer taking home their own unique experience of a store. As the technology develops further in the coming years, we wait to see how this possible game changer to the world of interactive advertising will manifest itself.