NEC’s Eye Flavor Signage is Watching You

NEC's "eye flavor" digital signage board uses facial recognition technology to display ads based on perceived age and gender, and evaluate viewers' interest.

We’re used to thinking of advertising as a one-way street—consumers view ads. But electronics giant NEC thinks turnaround is fair play: Now, the ads are watching consumers. The company has recently announced its oddly-named "eye flavor" all-in-one digital signage board, which combines a large LCD display with a camera, streaming controller, and facial recognition software to both tailor display ads to the perceived gender and age range of viewers…but also to measure how interested the viewers are in particular advertisements.

NEC has tested the systems in Japan at the Granduo Tachikawa mall, and has been offering them for sale in Japan since December. The going rate is ¥2 million, or about $22,500 USD. The system can not only pick out the age and gender of viewers, but gauge how far away they are from the sign, and can supply real-time effectiveness data back to advertisers. The system is relatively portable, making installation and set-up fairly easy. NEC expects to sell about 500 systems over the next three years.

Currently, the eye flavor sign is geared to recognize Japanese faces, but NEC is conducting trials to expand the application’s facial recognition capabilities.