May 6, 2008
BrainTrust Query: Is the digital profiling of in-store shoppers a recipe for privacy disaster?
By Laura Davis-Taylor, Founder & Principal, Retail Media Consulting
Gaze tracking technology is becoming a very exciting option for providing shopper insights such as how many people walked by a screen or display, how many looked, at what and for how long. This is true progress for the Marketing-at-Retail space, as it opens the door to real-time analytics that allow us to respond according to what works – and what doesn’t.
Another feature that many technology firms behind these systems tout is the ability to gauge shopper demographics such as age, ethnicity and sex. The promise is to not only gather these valuable data points, but to conceptually serve up content that is relevant to the type of person standing in front of the screen.
As exciting as this new technology is, there is an active strategic debate around it. Media buyers indeed want this valuable information to help them plan their media exposures within retail stores. However, privacy sensitivity has increased over the years and this new method of tracking may not sit well with them. Do Not Call and Do Not Mail lists are alive and well in many states and DM News has recently been reporting on the proposed Do Not Cookie bill. This points to less – not more – tolerance around personal privacy in other channels.
Discussion Questions: Should in-store marketers install gaze tracking systems that profile shopper demographics or is it opening Pandora’s Box to a privacy backlash?
[Author’s commentary] I come from the advertising world with much of my time entrenched in the online media space – from its emergence to current market acceptance. Because direct marketing is a principle for all digital media, this is an important question for our firm.
We are 100 percent on board with gaze tracking to monitor content/message effectiveness that will hopefully allow us to “optimize” messages much like we do with web marketing. However, the idea of doing real time demographic profiling without making shoppers aware of it is a scary proposition to me – as a marketer because I’m afraid of a potential backlash and as a shopper because I simply don’t like it. As a consumer, I want to have control over which brands are allowed to do this to me and which are not.
Consumers have shown us that they are sensitive to privacy and want to be asked before we assume it’s okay. My gut says we should take the high road as an industry – regardless of how tantalizing the proposition is from a media buyer’s perspective. As the saying goes, just because we can doesn’t mean we should!
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At the risk of sounding like I’m whining–but hey, at least I’m not suing–this discussion could have benefited from a bit more explanation of what technology is being considered; are we just talking about “security” cameras, or something more sophisticated?
That having been said, I think there will always be something of a contradiction here. While people in a public place (should) have no expectation of privacy, there nevertheless persists the belief that if a living being isn’t “there,” then it’s private…but just as we wonder about the noise of a tree falling in an empty forest, we can ask “is a space ‘private’ if you’re being looked at but don’t know it?”
Marketers need to respect the privacy rights of their customers and quit trying to employ various surveillance methods against them before there is a serious backlash. Whatever happened to asking people what they think? They just might tell you and in the end this is much more valuable and reliable than secretly trying to gather info and make wild assumptions to be fed into a model in place of actual human responses.
Many of these technology driven information gathering methods are misguided and the resulting information is worse than the “old” information it is replacing. A good example of this is what is happening in the radio industry where electronic listening is replacing diaries because they are “old fashioned” and unreliable. The problem is that stated listening is now replaced by “potential” listening and in order for potential listening to occur a pager must be worn…unfortunately many younger people don’t want to wear a pager and people don’t wear them to bed or in the shower. Morning listening referred to as drive time has decreased…but at least the measurement is done electronically so who cares if the resultant data is less reliable (smaller samples due to cost of new pagers) and based on assumptions that potential equals actual. Bad information input into any system will yield bad insights, no matter how marketers attempt to model it. Marketers need to think through the practical application of these technology driven information gathering techniques…if they do they would realize that many times they are only fooling themselves or are being fooled by the potential promise the technology offers but rarely delivers.
It wouldn’t bother me in the slightest, but clearly it would bother some people. More often than not, it seems, these people have the money and the inclination to hire lawyers, and they also know how to play the media. (Note: I didn’t say “all,” just “more often than not,” in my ignorant and politically incorrect profiling admission in the sentence above.) Anyway, if it were my stores, I’d wait and let someone else be the lightning rod for whatever lawsuits and headlines this might engender. If privacy fanatics start boycotting your stores or making noises, you’ve lost far more than you’ve gained.
We believe in shopper research as the best way to create stores that better meet shopper needs. Tracking technologies are fantastic tools to identify who is shopping what, when and how. When complementing with more interactive research such as in-store intercepts, ethnographs and focus groups, tracking offers fantastic potential to create more shopper-oriented stores.
The privacy issue is real and must be address at two levels:
1) What is the right thing to do?
As an industry, we must be committed to use the research in a proper and ethical way. That means no cheating and zooming into the tracking video to see that faces, using the vendor as a confidential 3rd party clearing house, and avoiding the temptation to share clear video broadly in the organization.
2) How does a retailer get shoppers comfortable with the technology?
Unfortunately in our litigious society, the first step is to post some notification of the policy somewhat visibly in the store. Then moving beyond to the customer care side, there are ways to help shoppers see the benefit of in-store research. Ideas range from contests selecting random shoppers for interviews with cash rewards to adding signage to cool new concepts telling shoppers this is a result of their research input to custom education and couponing at checkout.
The sky is the limit. Take image privacy seriously but know it can and will be done to create more shopper-centric stores.
There’s no single answer here. Gaze tracking depends completely on the retail environment, and the experience the customer expects from that environment. A Nike outlet store could get away with it; a Niketown could not. Target could; Saks could not.
If there is one rule here, it might be this: Leave the customer tracking to online commerce. In-store retailing needs to recover some of its personal touch, bolstered by technology, not dependent on it. In-store customers need to be intelligently interacted with, not scanned like a barcode.
The assumption in gaze tracking (eye tracking has the same problem) is that more gazing (frequency, duration) is better than less, and that more drives more sales. There is every reason to believe this is not always true (and may often not be true). Two simple examples–a really ugly package/display will grab a lot of attention but is unlikely to generate much action; if we make a package/display confusing, shoppers will spend more time looking at it, trying to figure it out, but the confusing aspect will hurt sales.
I’ve seen numerous eye and shopper tracking videos and believe them to be invaluable tools for building effective and efficient initiatives.
Respectable companies always blur the face and often some clothing of the individual in the video. With this procedure in place, I say film away.
I have to agree with ‘JVGaffney’ above. If you have a real, live customer in your store, what’s wrong with talking to them? They’ll likely volunteer all sorts of rich information you weren’t expecting–possibly things you’d never even *thought* to ask.
I know the filming data would be useful, but it just doesn’t seem right to treat customers like unpaid lab rats in a science experiment. Perhaps if some compensation were offered?
I am quite certain this technology would “track my gaze” differently in circumstances where I had forgotten my glasses in the car, and hence the results would be pretty useless to retailers.
This idea sounds like the type of thing that will fizzle out fast when all the privacy liability issues, and other potential pitfalls are thought through.
Profiling is inevitable, it is only a matter of when and where.
I don’t buy 99% of the items I “gaze” at, so not really sure about the relevance of this technology? Most of time I’m gazing because I can’t locate what it is I’m looking for! And what exactly is the definition of a gaze? Do I need to stop and look? Do I need to pick the product up? Does a slow stroll while perusing the product and signage count as a gaze?
I’d suggest that retailers already capture via POS, loyalty cards, focus groups, etc, most the data they need to determine and anticipate customers’ needs, wants and desires. It’s just that most of the time they don’t know exactly what to do with it what the benefit it can deliver to their customer and their bottom-line.
Instead of spending $100k per store (or whatever the cost is) on gazing technology to track my footprint, I’d rather retailers refocus and spend the money where it will tangibly benefit me–by opening up even just one extra register at 6pm so I can get home a few minutes earlier. Now, that would keep me coming back!
I must echo Prosper’s question: what ever happened to asking people what they think? I manage a discount store, yet pricing isn’t the only reason why we’re doing well. We hire and promote our employees for their people skills, and we bring out new merchandise all day and every day. These two priorities bring our regular customers in to shop with us several times a week if not daily, because it’s fun for them. When they don’t come in, they wonder what they’ve missed not only in terms of merchandise, but in terms of community. And you can be sure that they tell us what they think and what they hope to find without even being prompted, because they feel like its THEIR store….
There are sophisticated systems that track shopper traffic patterns through stores. There are reward systems based on customers’ previous purchase behavior. Way back in the mid-80s for doctoral studies I tracked shopper viewing patterns through the use of cameras attached to football helmets worn by test subjects in stores. Our viewing, listening, and internet surfing habits can be tracked. We signal our interest in product displays by buying something from them. We use focus groups to assess the attractiveness of store decor. We interview customers. But, we actually use very little of this mountain of information at our disposal to be better retailers. Will this new source of data really be useful?
Sooner or later every revolution reaches a point where the aim of the revolution is overtaken by the results of that revolution. The current revolution of advancement in electronic monitoring technology will soon reach that point. We have to decide whether or not we choose to do the right thing, or choose whatever is left.
Consumers may initially marvel at the technology and be taken off guard at the implications behind the progression of this technology, but sooner or later they will become resentful. After all, if you really think about it, it’s like treating your customers like guinea pigs in a lab. Keep tabs on them as they wander through the maze and record the things that trigger their attention.
It is one thing to shop online and be tracked via the use of cookies and whatnot, but it is another thing completely when tracking a live person throughout an environment. Recall back in the old days when the “butt brush factor” was the big thing in training your merchandisers and salespeople? The rule was to keep your distance. People did not care to have others encroach upon ones “personal” space. That hasn’t changed, and it never will. The more this technology is used in a visible manner, the less it will be acceptable in the long term. The image of harassment will become a shadow whenever a consumer enters a store. And to utilize the technology in a surreptitious manner will lead to charges of spying and eavesdropping, and potentially damaging suggestions of trespassing by retailers into the shoppers private world.
This potential may well be exciting and financially profitable, but I believe that in the long run, it will only serve to damage the industries involved in demographic/statistics acquisition and research. When people are online, they expect to be tracked, it’s part of the world of cyber-commerce, but not when you are strolling through a building picking out a bottle of mustard or a new package of underwear. That just smacks of Big Brotherism.
Asked about gaze tracking, many retailers would say, “The best measure of shopper acceptance: my sales data. Who cares what shoppers look at? I only care about what’s purchased.”
Regarding gaze tracking lawsuits: as long as the retailer posts a sign telling folks that the store uses video surveillance, anyone can sue, but it’s unlikely they’ll have a winning case.
Regarding gaze tracking publicity: if the store presents the information to the public appropriately, they’ll probably be fine. How about a press release that says, “we’re using the finest technology in the world to help us stock what our customers want most” instead of, “we’re spying on people because we’re nosy.”
There is something about a store that renders me mesmerized. That probably counts as gazing. But don’t try asking me what I was looking at or what I saw or anything about size, shape, colour, price or other detail because I am not likely to have paid enough attention. Stick that in your computer and analyze it.
I think the collection of the data is fine if a shopper has given consent to be tracked, but the logistics of keeping track of who has agreed and who hasn’t in-store are very tough to solve right now, even if you use some kind of token or RFID-based system.
The bigger problem is that retailers have proven more or less inept at data security, so any private information collected is virtually certain not to remain private for long.
Retailers can’t even keep credit card data safe. Why would we think they could do a better job with an even larger volume of data (and one without any current government oversight or industry regulation a’la PCI, no less)?
Many stores have signs telling people that security cameras are tracking their movements. This is to be a deterrent to shoplifters as well as a way of letting consumers know that cameras are recording their movement. Consumers should also be informed that cameras may be tracking what they look at. I doubt that there would be much objection to that. However, if the sign also says that consumer demographics will be identified from the pictures some people may well object.
Some stores will experiment and find out whether their consumers have strong objections or not. If consumers are not told and find out later they were observed and recorded, there would be a strong backlash.
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At the risk of sounding like I’m whining–but hey, at least I’m not suing–this discussion could have benefited from a bit more explanation of what technology is being considered; are we just talking about “security” cameras, or something more sophisticated?
That having been said, I think there will always be something of a contradiction here. While people in a public place (should) have no expectation of privacy, there nevertheless persists the belief that if a living being isn’t “there,” then it’s private…but just as we wonder about the noise of a tree falling in an empty forest, we can ask “is a space ‘private’ if you’re being looked at but don’t know it?”
Marketers need to respect the privacy rights of their customers and quit trying to employ various surveillance methods against them before there is a serious backlash. Whatever happened to asking people what they think? They just might tell you and in the end this is much more valuable and reliable than secretly trying to gather info and make wild assumptions to be fed into a model in place of actual human responses.
Many of these technology driven information gathering methods are misguided and the resulting information is worse than the “old” information it is replacing. A good example of this is what is happening in the radio industry where electronic listening is replacing diaries because they are “old fashioned” and unreliable. The problem is that stated listening is now replaced by “potential” listening and in order for potential listening to occur a pager must be worn…unfortunately many younger people don’t want to wear a pager and people don’t wear them to bed or in the shower. Morning listening referred to as drive time has decreased…but at least the measurement is done electronically so who cares if the resultant data is less reliable (smaller samples due to cost of new pagers) and based on assumptions that potential equals actual. Bad information input into any system will yield bad insights, no matter how marketers attempt to model it. Marketers need to think through the practical application of these technology driven information gathering techniques…if they do they would realize that many times they are only fooling themselves or are being fooled by the potential promise the technology offers but rarely delivers.
It wouldn’t bother me in the slightest, but clearly it would bother some people. More often than not, it seems, these people have the money and the inclination to hire lawyers, and they also know how to play the media. (Note: I didn’t say “all,” just “more often than not,” in my ignorant and politically incorrect profiling admission in the sentence above.) Anyway, if it were my stores, I’d wait and let someone else be the lightning rod for whatever lawsuits and headlines this might engender. If privacy fanatics start boycotting your stores or making noises, you’ve lost far more than you’ve gained.
We believe in shopper research as the best way to create stores that better meet shopper needs. Tracking technologies are fantastic tools to identify who is shopping what, when and how. When complementing with more interactive research such as in-store intercepts, ethnographs and focus groups, tracking offers fantastic potential to create more shopper-oriented stores.
The privacy issue is real and must be address at two levels:
1) What is the right thing to do?
As an industry, we must be committed to use the research in a proper and ethical way. That means no cheating and zooming into the tracking video to see that faces, using the vendor as a confidential 3rd party clearing house, and avoiding the temptation to share clear video broadly in the organization.
2) How does a retailer get shoppers comfortable with the technology?
Unfortunately in our litigious society, the first step is to post some notification of the policy somewhat visibly in the store. Then moving beyond to the customer care side, there are ways to help shoppers see the benefit of in-store research. Ideas range from contests selecting random shoppers for interviews with cash rewards to adding signage to cool new concepts telling shoppers this is a result of their research input to custom education and couponing at checkout.
The sky is the limit. Take image privacy seriously but know it can and will be done to create more shopper-centric stores.
There’s no single answer here. Gaze tracking depends completely on the retail environment, and the experience the customer expects from that environment. A Nike outlet store could get away with it; a Niketown could not. Target could; Saks could not.
If there is one rule here, it might be this: Leave the customer tracking to online commerce. In-store retailing needs to recover some of its personal touch, bolstered by technology, not dependent on it. In-store customers need to be intelligently interacted with, not scanned like a barcode.
The assumption in gaze tracking (eye tracking has the same problem) is that more gazing (frequency, duration) is better than less, and that more drives more sales. There is every reason to believe this is not always true (and may often not be true). Two simple examples–a really ugly package/display will grab a lot of attention but is unlikely to generate much action; if we make a package/display confusing, shoppers will spend more time looking at it, trying to figure it out, but the confusing aspect will hurt sales.
I’ve seen numerous eye and shopper tracking videos and believe them to be invaluable tools for building effective and efficient initiatives.
Respectable companies always blur the face and often some clothing of the individual in the video. With this procedure in place, I say film away.
I have to agree with ‘JVGaffney’ above. If you have a real, live customer in your store, what’s wrong with talking to them? They’ll likely volunteer all sorts of rich information you weren’t expecting–possibly things you’d never even *thought* to ask.
I know the filming data would be useful, but it just doesn’t seem right to treat customers like unpaid lab rats in a science experiment. Perhaps if some compensation were offered?
I am quite certain this technology would “track my gaze” differently in circumstances where I had forgotten my glasses in the car, and hence the results would be pretty useless to retailers.
This idea sounds like the type of thing that will fizzle out fast when all the privacy liability issues, and other potential pitfalls are thought through.
Profiling is inevitable, it is only a matter of when and where.
I don’t buy 99% of the items I “gaze” at, so not really sure about the relevance of this technology? Most of time I’m gazing because I can’t locate what it is I’m looking for! And what exactly is the definition of a gaze? Do I need to stop and look? Do I need to pick the product up? Does a slow stroll while perusing the product and signage count as a gaze?
I’d suggest that retailers already capture via POS, loyalty cards, focus groups, etc, most the data they need to determine and anticipate customers’ needs, wants and desires. It’s just that most of the time they don’t know exactly what to do with it what the benefit it can deliver to their customer and their bottom-line.
Instead of spending $100k per store (or whatever the cost is) on gazing technology to track my footprint, I’d rather retailers refocus and spend the money where it will tangibly benefit me–by opening up even just one extra register at 6pm so I can get home a few minutes earlier. Now, that would keep me coming back!
I must echo Prosper’s question: what ever happened to asking people what they think? I manage a discount store, yet pricing isn’t the only reason why we’re doing well. We hire and promote our employees for their people skills, and we bring out new merchandise all day and every day. These two priorities bring our regular customers in to shop with us several times a week if not daily, because it’s fun for them. When they don’t come in, they wonder what they’ve missed not only in terms of merchandise, but in terms of community. And you can be sure that they tell us what they think and what they hope to find without even being prompted, because they feel like its THEIR store….
There are sophisticated systems that track shopper traffic patterns through stores. There are reward systems based on customers’ previous purchase behavior. Way back in the mid-80s for doctoral studies I tracked shopper viewing patterns through the use of cameras attached to football helmets worn by test subjects in stores. Our viewing, listening, and internet surfing habits can be tracked. We signal our interest in product displays by buying something from them. We use focus groups to assess the attractiveness of store decor. We interview customers. But, we actually use very little of this mountain of information at our disposal to be better retailers. Will this new source of data really be useful?
Sooner or later every revolution reaches a point where the aim of the revolution is overtaken by the results of that revolution. The current revolution of advancement in electronic monitoring technology will soon reach that point. We have to decide whether or not we choose to do the right thing, or choose whatever is left.
Consumers may initially marvel at the technology and be taken off guard at the implications behind the progression of this technology, but sooner or later they will become resentful. After all, if you really think about it, it’s like treating your customers like guinea pigs in a lab. Keep tabs on them as they wander through the maze and record the things that trigger their attention.
It is one thing to shop online and be tracked via the use of cookies and whatnot, but it is another thing completely when tracking a live person throughout an environment. Recall back in the old days when the “butt brush factor” was the big thing in training your merchandisers and salespeople? The rule was to keep your distance. People did not care to have others encroach upon ones “personal” space. That hasn’t changed, and it never will. The more this technology is used in a visible manner, the less it will be acceptable in the long term. The image of harassment will become a shadow whenever a consumer enters a store. And to utilize the technology in a surreptitious manner will lead to charges of spying and eavesdropping, and potentially damaging suggestions of trespassing by retailers into the shoppers private world.
This potential may well be exciting and financially profitable, but I believe that in the long run, it will only serve to damage the industries involved in demographic/statistics acquisition and research. When people are online, they expect to be tracked, it’s part of the world of cyber-commerce, but not when you are strolling through a building picking out a bottle of mustard or a new package of underwear. That just smacks of Big Brotherism.
Asked about gaze tracking, many retailers would say, “The best measure of shopper acceptance: my sales data. Who cares what shoppers look at? I only care about what’s purchased.”
Regarding gaze tracking lawsuits: as long as the retailer posts a sign telling folks that the store uses video surveillance, anyone can sue, but it’s unlikely they’ll have a winning case.
Regarding gaze tracking publicity: if the store presents the information to the public appropriately, they’ll probably be fine. How about a press release that says, “we’re using the finest technology in the world to help us stock what our customers want most” instead of, “we’re spying on people because we’re nosy.”
There is something about a store that renders me mesmerized. That probably counts as gazing. But don’t try asking me what I was looking at or what I saw or anything about size, shape, colour, price or other detail because I am not likely to have paid enough attention. Stick that in your computer and analyze it.
I think the collection of the data is fine if a shopper has given consent to be tracked, but the logistics of keeping track of who has agreed and who hasn’t in-store are very tough to solve right now, even if you use some kind of token or RFID-based system.
The bigger problem is that retailers have proven more or less inept at data security, so any private information collected is virtually certain not to remain private for long.
Retailers can’t even keep credit card data safe. Why would we think they could do a better job with an even larger volume of data (and one without any current government oversight or industry regulation a’la PCI, no less)?
Many stores have signs telling people that security cameras are tracking their movements. This is to be a deterrent to shoplifters as well as a way of letting consumers know that cameras are recording their movement. Consumers should also be informed that cameras may be tracking what they look at. I doubt that there would be much objection to that. However, if the sign also says that consumer demographics will be identified from the pictures some people may well object.
Some stores will experiment and find out whether their consumers have strong objections or not. If consumers are not told and find out later they were observed and recorded, there would be a strong backlash.