Worldwide Charity Uses Tech To Target. Women, Girls.

Facial recognition software being used in UK campaign to determine gender of viewer.

Now this is interesting! A worldwide charity called Plan, which focuses on helping millions of underprivileged children in over 50 developing nations, has launched an innovative ad campaign in the UK. The transit campaign called Because I Am A Girl uses facial recognition software to determine the gender of the person standing in front of it. If the scan determines the viewer is female, a 40-second ad plays that features three young teenage girls each from a different country. Men and boys are not shown the ads but are directed to information allowing them to give so that girls can have choices.
The powerful ads informs the viewer that as many as 75 million girls are denied the right to education or forced into marriages where many have children while still being children themselves. The point of the ads is to educate as well as to actually demonstrate how girls in many countries are denied access.
The ads have a computer, a touch screen and a hi-definition camera. The software scans a face and then uses algorithm that compares facial features to a standard using distance between the eyes, width of nose, length of the jaw line and shape of cheekbones. It has tested about 90% accurate.
This isn’t the first time facial recognition has been used in a campaign, but here it is being used in a very unique manner. Selecting gender in this case, is part of the creative strategy and reinforces the message. As planners, our goal is always to have the creative drive home the insight. This campaign has the potential to do just that.
The campaign also uses digital, social media and PR. The plan has been around as a charity since 1937. The campaign is running everywhere on the web, but only in Canada and the UK does it go beyond the web and so far only in London does it use the facial recognition ad described here. The interactive display was created by Clear Channel with the help of 3D Exposure and Curb Media.
I believe it is just a matter of time before we start seeing more innovative technology collaborations hit the US market.

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