Facial recognition advertising is an innovative, personalized form of marketing that introduces as many opportunities as it does concerns. Sensors recognize customers’ faces and change how an ad appears to them in real-time. This advancement only exists in large national chains, but small businesses are expected to join this trend soon.
In her recent article, content writer Kiely Kuligowski provides small business owners and marketers with a guide to facial recognition advertising. First, she discusses their benefits. She explains that this technology displays products in their best light, provides real-time CRM analytics, allows customization, and promotes more significant sales for previously ignored merchandise. However, Kuligowski warns about the concerns related to this trend. Companies could track and store facial data, and the lack of human touch and critical thinking in facial recognition software may lead to inaccurate product recommendations. Facial recognition technology could also use assumptions and biases when recommending to customers.
Regardless of these risks, facial recognition is the future of targeted advertising. Already, we see similar technology in action, with social media ads targetting specific users. Facial recognition is just an in-real-life version of this hyperspecific target marketing. The question now is how will this technology continue to evolve?