One-Way-Mirror Society: Lower and Medium Privacy Risk Consumer Tracking Technologies

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Heat maps and path tracking

Heat maps and path tracking technologies essentially generate maps of where consumers spend the most time standing and walking in stores. (Figure 2). One product, PathTracker, uses RFID chips for large store tracking, and video tracking technology for smaller stores or sub-areas within stores.

“PathTracker is an electronic tracking system that records the coordinates of shoppers from the time the enter the store until checkout…..to protect the privacy of shoppers, the identities of the shoppers remain anonymous.” [43]

Figure 2
A heat map of customers’ movements in a retail store; the red areas show the sites where consumers spent the most time.

A growing body of research exists about supermarket shopping tracking and shopper’s pathways through stores.44 The technology has a number of variations, but the theme is generally the same.

Gaze tracking

Gaze tracking in the context of digital signage is typically used in package and shelf testing.45 One market research company noted that sample marketing questions gaze tracking can answer can include:

Do shoppers see the product on the shelf?
How many of the products on the shelf are noticed?
How much attention does the product get compared to competing products?
How quickly is the product able to attract attention?
How long time does it take for shoppers to find a product that they are actively looking for?
For how long is the product considered?
How many times do shoppers look at the product? [46]

Gaze tracking technology may be based on a single gaze tracking camera, [47] or it may be used in conjunction with other cameras and technologies.

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Endnotes

[43] Track Shoppers to Greater Profits, PathTracker for Retailers. <http://www.sorensen-associates.com>.

[44] Larson, Bradlow, Fader. An Exploratory Look at Supermarket Shopping Paths, April 2005. Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

[45] Tobii, <http://www.tobii.com/market_research_usability/research_fields/retail_shopping/white_papers.aspx >.

[46] <http://www.tobii.com/market_research_usability/research_fields/retail_shopping/example_research.aspx>.

[47] <http://www.irc.atr.jp/en/research_project/human_beh_ana/gaze_det/>.

Roadmap: The One-Way-Mirror Society – Privacy Implications of the new Digital Signage Networks: III. Lower and Medium Privacy Risk Consumer Tracking Technologies

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Posted January 27, 2010 in Behavioral Advertising, Consumer Privacy, Digital Signage, Facial Recognition, Future of Privacy, Online/Offline, Report: One Way Mirror Society, Retail Privacy, Uncategorized

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