Tesco has partnered with digital outdoor advertising company Amscreen to launch in-store audience measurement technology that is able to determine a range of basic demographics.
Set to roll-out across all 450 of the supermarket’s petrol stations in the UK, Amscreen’s OptimEyes has been developed to recognise gender, age, date, time and volume, in a bid to deliver more measurable campaigns for advertisers, as well as more relevant on-screen content for Tesco customers.
Earlier this year Amscreen announced the roll-out of 6,000 face-tracking systems in an outdoor digital partnership with Quividi, described by Lord Sugar as an “advertising revolution”.
The new real time digital media network will deliver content to a weekly audience of over five million adults.
“We believe it’s our flexibility, reliability and measurability that has helped us secure this partnership [with Tesco],” said Amscreen’s CEO Simon Sugar.
“For potential advertisers, this means we can now offer various digital advertising solutions to reach the sought after Tesco shopper.”
Peter Cattell, category director for Tesco petrol stations added: “We’re always looking to work with partners who provide innovative ways to enhance the customer shopping experience. This new dynamic screen product from Amscreen provides the perfect means for us to do this.
“The ability to tailor content based on time and location means it can be extremely useful and timely for our customers.”
However, privacy groups have expressed concerns about the new technology. Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, told the Daily Telegraph: “People would never accept a degree of surveillance for law enforcement purposes, but these systems are solely designed to watch us for collecting marketing data.
“People would never accept the police keeping a real-time log of which shops we go in, but this technology can do just that. It is a surveillance state by the shop door.”
Consumers have also taken to Twitter to voice their outrage, with some likening it to Orwell’s 1984.
