Facial recognition technology seems to be making a big entry in street and point of sale marketing strategies and brands such as Coca Cola, Kraft, Adidas and even The Venetian casino in Las Vegas are leading the way.

Adidas will be using the technology in shopping center screens to identify a person’s age in order to better serve ads that are most relevant to them.  If you’re a 60 year old man, chances are you’re not much into flashy hipster style runners…

Kraft will use the technology in face scanning kiosks, depending on your age and gender, it will serve up different suggestions on how to best prepare you Kraft products.

The Venetian resort, hotel and casino in Las Vegas is now using the technology to suggest restaurants, clubs and all types of entertainment to their clients

But what is facial recognition and why is it such a controversial issue?

Facial recognition brings privacy issues because it can allow you to start from an anonymous face and end up sensitive information about any given person, a third of the time.  This was demonstrated by a study from the Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College in Pittsburgh.

In order to better understand the debate it is fundamental to know that there are two types of facial recognition technology.

There is the type that can match you face to your identity, this is primarily used by law enforcement agencies around the world.  Facebook and Google would also fall into this category, they both offer their own photo software which scans your pictures and suggests matches with pictures that include the same people.

The second category of facial recognition technology will only scan you face to get two types of information: gender and age.

The debate rages on but that does not seem to discourage brands such as Coca-Cola and Google to keep experimenting with the first category of facial recognition technology, moreover, the technology is starting to appear in the most unusual way, such as online dating agencies.  Looking for a good looking mate?  Let facial recognition technology take care of your quest.

As we wait for government regulators to step in, those who want to opt out of Facebook facial-recognition features can do so following these 4 easy steps…courtesy or the Los Angeles Times…

Daniel Arenas Tello

For there latest mission( Improve everywhere ) they constructed a custom wooden lectern with a megaphone holster and an attached sign that read, “Say Something Nice.” The lectern was placed in public spaces around New York and then left alone. We wanted to see what would happen if New Yorkers were given the opportunity to amplify their voices to “say something nice.”

Say Something Nice was produced by Improv Everywhere as part of the Guggenheim Museum exhibition stillspotting nyc. This is our second collaboration in the series, the first being The Mute Button.

3 D Mapping Billboard

3 D mapping is a hot trend and every brand wants to surf the trend.

They are still huge exterior displays affair that takes entire buildings and blocks, powerful and state of the art technology and of course…important budgets that only big brands can afford.

Brands such as ADIDAS came through with 3D sessions complete with its own DJ and musical display, RALPH LAUREN felt they needed to get into the craze and projected their own classy and unique brand personality on to building Façades, façades, façades…

But where and how will 3D Mapping evolve?  Folks at ACCESS AGENCY would say: AWAY FROM BUILDING FAÇADES AND INTO BILLBOARDS!

Take a look at this upcoming 3D Mapping Billboard for Mini by ACCESS AGENCY.  The concept breathes novelty and freshness.  It’s apparently not operational yet as it will be launching the new Mini Model in early 2012.

Can’t wait to see the results…

What do you think?  Is this “Augmented Reality” disguised as 3D Mapping?

Daniel Arenas Tello

Few pictures from our initial action of Pointless fun ( Trident) last week in BBK Bilbao Festival .

Doodle the car and you can win it!

Job in partner with Poko and Jack Agency

“BIMMMM! That is that T-Mobile us with a live operator rather unlikely in the DNA of the game Angry Birds Live. Point gaming invited the public to play the famous game on a smartphone. Each action was then reproduced to scale itself through an impressive event. To see …

Coca cola is creating a Pop up Store in Paris where you can review the old history and experience the old Coca Cola drinks.

Los siempre chicos creativos de ted, durante una de sus conferencias, esta vez en buenos aires, decidieron invitar a sus charlas a uno de los colectivos que mas difunden o evangelizan con ideas: los taxistas. para ello incorporaron 50 conductores a las charlas de ted con el fin de que ellos, a su vez, hablaran de innovación e ideas con sus clientes… brillante idea y esperanzador resultado:

check out this ten great guerrilla marketing campaigns from arround the world.

For the designated brand, we can’t find a better POS stunt than this one!