Mondelez International, whose portfolio includes the likes of Chips Ahoy, Nabisco, Oreo, Trident, Toblerone, Halls, Ritz and other high-profile snacks, says it plans to debut a grocery shelf in 2015, which comes equipped with sensors to determine the age and sex of passing customers.
The shelf is hooked up to Microsoft’s Kinect controller, which is a motion sensing input device.
It will be able to scan basic facial features like bone structure to build a profile of a potential snacker, Mondelez chief information officer Mark Dajani told the Wall Street Journal.
Pictures of people’s faces will not be stored however the scanner will aggregate demographic data from the thousands of people who shop in these stores.
The information will help the company build a more accurate understanding of what their consumers like to buy and thereby help funnel more of the desired products to the right shoppers.
It is also hoped the new technology will help to convince people who are undecided about what to buy to make an impulse buy by offering well-timed in-store commercials or coupons when the embedded weight sensor learns they have picked up an item, according to The Washington Post.
It is something quite similar to the Hollywood film Minority Report, where Tom Cruise is bombarded from all sides with advertising that is based on his state of mind.
The snacks company might not quite be there yet, but technology is certainly moving in that direction.
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