Japan is testing a billboard that can tell the difference between male and female faces - and display appropriate ads accordingly. The system is running now in subway stations around Tokyo, CNET writes. A consortium of 11 railway companies launched a one-year pilot project to test the signs. Its aim, according to CNET, is to collect data on what sorts of people look at which ads at what times of day.The CNET article linked above mentions that facial recognition is involved.
Tools developed for identity management can be applied to other challenges such as gender determination for the purposes of marketing in public places even though gender determination by humans is an extremely complicated process. Most facial recognition systems used for identification don't attempt to evaluate the gender of the individual. This is due to the fact that in a security context (logical and physical), the exact identity of the individual is more important to those who deploy theses systems than is gender. The users' tolerance for mistakes in the security context is low.
In a marketing context, the rules of the game change. A static billboard for a gender-specific product will appeal to some proportion of the population. Due to differences in age and gender that proportion is likely far short of 50%.
A system that tries to figure out age and gender doesn't have to be correct all the time in order to provide a positive return on investment (ROI) by increasing the percentage of impressions that have a chance of impacting customer behavior.
Moreover, the costs of the system making an incorrect judgment approach zero and the rewards for "tricking" the system are zero.
Even better, if the system is "tricked" by, for instance, a man with highlights and wearing lipstick, the system still works if you are advertising lipstick.
Sophisticated adopters don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.
