The EyeSee model, sold by Italian producer Almax SpA is the first face profiling system to reside in a mannequin. It was designed and manufactured by Kee Square in collaboration with Selea (a research and development company of advanced video surveillance). The units went on sale last December for $5,130. Currently they are being used in three European countries and the U.S. though the manufacturer declines to name their clients.
One smart dummy, the EyeSee mannequin is an eco friendly body with a surprise inside. It’s made of an entirely recyclable and shockproof polystyrene shell and finished with water based paints. Inside, a camera has been embedded in one eye which feeds data into facial-recognition software that logs the age, gender, and race of passers-by. This information is used to create customer reports that are output to a computer or mobile device.
Because mannequins stand at customer level they engage more interaction than over-head security cameras to collect high caliber data. Retailers can use this sort of “spyware” as long as they have a closed-circuit television license because EyeSee doesn’t store any images.
Retailers see it as a way to keep up with online competition when it comes to data collection. Uché Okonkwo, executive director of consultant Luxe Corp. told Bloomberg, “Any software that can help profile people while keeping their identities anonymous is fantastic. [It] could really enhance the shopping experience, the product assortment, and help brands better understand their customers.”
The allure of analytic people watching in a retail setting is that it:
- allows retailers to evaluate the effectiveness and exposure of their windows
- improves the service provided by the store personnel by being able to predict store traffic and the needs of particular groups of customers
- gives businesses a better idea of customer trends and how to feature their products accordingly
Lorna Hall, retail editor at fashion forecaster WGSN said, “The retail community is starting to get wise to the opportunity around personalization. The golden ticket is getting to the point where they’ve got my details, they know what I bought last time I came in.”
For example, particular data collected revealed to one outlet that men who shopped in the first two days of a sale spent more than women over the same period of time. This led the company to adjust its window displays in a manner that is initially targeted more towards men’s taste.
Bloomberg also cites instances where “a clothier introduced a children’s line after the dummy showed that kids made up more than half its mid-afternoon traffic, the company says. Another store found that a third of visitors using one of its doors after 4 p.m. were Asian, prompting it to place Chinese-speaking staff by that entrance.”
But what if customers don’t want their picture taken? SmartPlanet quotes Christopher Mesnooh, a partner at Parisian law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse as saying, “If you go on Facebook, before you start the registration process, you can see exactly what information they are going to collect and what they’re going to do with it. If you’re walking into a store, where’s the choice?”
Some wonder if profiling people with the same technology used to capture terrorists might be off-putting to their customers. Emma Carr, deputy director of civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch explains her feelings about it, “Keeping cameras hidden in a mannequin is nothing short of creepy. The use of covert surveillance technology by shops, in order to provide a personalized service, seems totally disproportionate. The fact that the cameras are hidden suggests that shops are fully aware that many customers would object to this kind of monitoring.”
Colin Johnson, a spokesman for Nordstrom who wonders if facial recognition may be taking personalized marketing a step too far said, “It’s a changing landscape but we’re always going to be sensitive about respecting the customer’s boundaries.” Nordstrom does not use the EyeSee mannequins but they can collect consumer data if a customer chooses to connect via WiFi, iPads or video screens at their retail locations.
Almax assures customers that, “All this is total respect of privacy, protected by a sophisticated mix of hardware and software technology which processes the data without the aid of a computer and without having to record and transmit sensitive information (images or biometric data), and so without leaving any trace of the face analyzed.”
Image Courtesy of adamr at FreeDigitalPhotos
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