Technology is always being updated and we are constantly being inundated with the latest must have gadget. Tesco is now planning on installing face-scanning technology that will then tailor advertisements at their petrol stations based on the consumers’ age and gender.
This technology is great for the advertisers and provides measurable ROI’s, but what about the customer experience?
Basing adverts on facial features to determine gender falls into the trap of stereotypes. This will assume that women should be shown beauty adverts and men sport adverts for example; but what about men that straighten their hair and women who follow football? Tesco should know that you can’t determine an individual’s interest based on their facial features; however gender is still advertiser’s main differentiator.
It is also important to highlight that appearances can’t always show a person’s gender – a Tesco representative said that hair length will be used as a good measure to determine someone’s gender, but this won’t take into account a man that has long hair and a woman that has short.
Businesses are always trying to find a way to target their demographic groups and even go to the extent of excluding specific audiences; take Yorkie for example, they have used the “IT’S NOT FOR GIRLS!” tagline all over their chocolate bars as well as McCoy’s who has more recently changed their crisps adverts to promote their “man crisps”.
Although the latter is aimed at effeminate men rather than woman, they have still managed to alienate their target audience and tell others they aren’t allowed their products. This has created an ingenious marketing ploy that means men make a point of saying to women “that’s not for you” “you’re not allowed that” if they try and eat it – and woman often wanting to prove a point by deliberately doing so! After all, since when has gender dictated what food we can and can’t eat?
Previously we ran a promotion for a client offering free manicures on a key B2C brand packaging. Statistics showed that mainly woman consumed the product however we had approximately 100 complaints from men who had no use for the free manicure. This showed us that it was important to offer an alternative for men, who although not the key demographic with the promotion, still wanted to be rewarded the same as women.
Is this type of advertising the method of the future or should we adhere to sayings such as “don’t judge a book by its cover” and “looks can be deceiving”. Should adverts be generalised to individuals based on age and gender alone?
Overall we love this initiative but are waiting to see the potential pitfalls based on age, gender, stereotypes and religion etc.