Yahoo Ads Assembled On the Fly

Yahoo's freshly launched Smart Ads network rearranges ad unit assets to display personalized messages and layouts on the fly based on the individual user's demo info and past behaviors. Details and a quote from Wall Street Journal on Search Engine Land. Looks a lot like that ad I've been hit with when searching for an overseas flight.

Pheromones Encourage Shopping

Found this news article back from January 2004 while browsing Live-Scent.com forums:

"Now Canadian retailers are squirting a synthetic human pheromone around shop floors. The stuff apparently makes customers feel comfortable and secure and hence more likely to buy.The pheromone was originally designed for a big Las Vegas casino. Now Vancouver-based Enhanced Air Technologies (EAT) has released its Commercaire (www.commercaire.com) pheromone for general use."

Apparently, the project was soon abandoned and both the product and company sites are dead. If you know anything about the story or any other company that uses pheromones in retail, leave a comment.

Earlier:
A Bottle of New Car Scent

Digital Cameras Reveal Hidden Images

Kameraflage: "context-sensitive display technology, encodes a layer of information that can only be viewed by the human eye when looking at an image of the scene taken by a camera.

Kameraflage is possible because digital cameras see a broader spectrum of light than human eyes. By rendering content in these wavelengths we are able to create displays that are invisible to the naked eye, yet can be seen when imaged with a digital camera."

In other words, you can now place hidden messages on print ads and billboards and t-shirts and other stuff that will only be visible to people when they take a picture of it with a digital camera or a camera phone.

via Cool Hunting via Cherryflava

Earlier:
Game Promo Uses Camera, "Ghosted" Film
MINI Connects With Fans Using Spy Gadgets
High-Pitch Ringtones in Advertising

Wal-Mart and Target on Facebook

Fallon Planning Blog noticed how Wal-Mart and Target had launched similar back-to-college programs on Facebook, both allowing users to select from a set of pre-canned designs (and Amazon has something similar on its own site). While the two pages may share many interactive similarities, the user comments are strikingly different. The mood on Wal-Mart's page: "This is about the soul of our great country we most not let wal mart hollow it out." On Target's: "I love going to Target even when I have nothing in particular to buy." Click on the thumbnails for screen-grab enlargement; if you have a Facebook account and want to see for yourself, search for both brands and they'll come up on the top.

Peanuts as Business Cards

Pink Tentacle: "Taberu Me cards are created using Arigatou’s high-grade CO2 laser engraver nicknamed "Shiawase-kun," which can etch up to 700 characters per second on hard organic materials like beans, nuts, rice and pasta and which has been optimized to print clean-looking logos, names and telephone numbers on the irregular surfaces of peanut shells."

More:

• Business Card for Debt Recovery Agent
• Business Card Dispensers
• Uses for QR Codes
• Chocolate Business Card
• Advertising On Chocolate
• New Media: Holopops?
• Branding Food
• Gourmet Photography
• Advertising on Candy
• More Branded Food
• Branding Food With Laser Cutter

Study: Science Behind Immersion

An abstract from a recent Wall Street Journal article (via Murketing) on virtual relationships and their toll on real ones that sheds some light on cognitive processes in players' brains:

"On a neurological level, players may not distinguish between virtual and real-life relationships, recent studies suggest. In an experiment conducted at the University of Washington's Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, test subjects were hooked up to neuroimaging machines while they played a simple computer game in which they moved colored discs to form a pattern. When told that they were playing with a person rather than a computer, participants showed increased activity in areas of the brain that govern social interaction.

Other experiments show that people socializing in virtual worlds remain sensitive to subtle cues like eye contact. In one study, participants moved their avatars back if another character stood too close, even though the space violation was merely virtual, says Jeremy Bailenson, director of Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab, which was created five years ago to study social behavior in virtual worlds. "Our brains are not specialized for 21st-century media," says Prof. Reeves. "There's no switch that says, 'Process this differently because it's on a screen.' "

Amazon Shows Products in Context

I like how Amazon is showing products in context in this interactive unit promoting back-to-school dorm room special. When the images is mouse-overed, little flags come up and you can pop up explanatory highlights over each of them. If nothing else, this seems like a good way to encourage consideration of complementary products (buy milk -- don't forget the cookies).

Cameras That Make People Smile

A cute example of product innovation based on a cultural insight: a Pez dispenser attached to the camera's hot-shoe makes "picture-takees" produce a more organic smile than having them say cheese (via BoingBoing). Expect a new wave of cameras with red-eye reduction and smile-enhancing features.



One of my most vivid memories from a trip to the Magic Kingdom are Kodak's Picture Spot signs (this picture is someone else's). Wonder why there aren't more of those around the landmarks in tourist destinations. Our office is right next to the Trinity Church, a textbook tourist attraction in Boston. The tourists' picture-taking ritual is rather complex and, I think, culture-dependent.


Tourists at Times Sq.

And this is the picture that started it all.

Future: Technology Recognizes Shopping Intent

With military technology having a way of trickling down to civilian uses, this piece from the New Scientist Tech (paid sub) sounds interesting:

"The computer that is processing the data from these hidden sensors is not searching for explosives, knives, guns or contraband. Instead, it is working on a much tougher problem: whether you are thinking about committing a terrorist act, either imminently, or at sometime during your stay in the US."

"[Project Hostile Intent] aims to identify facial expressions, gait, blood pressure, pulse and perspiration rates that are characteristic of hostility or the desire to deceive. Then the idea is to develop "real-time, culturally independent, non-invasive sensors."

This is the future where store doors will analyze each entering customer's biometrics, cross-reference them with the purchase history and whatever other personal info is on file, and then have the digital signage or robo-clerks to customize the sales pitch just so.

- via Danger Room

Second Life: Bank Run, Minted Coins

After two unseasonably intense but fun 80-hour weeks at work, I'm back to our regular programming. Apologies for the outage; my only hope is that most of you are on well-deserved vacations.

Anyway, two pieces of news from Second Life. The first is that Ginko Financial, a virtual bank that lured customers with a promise of 44% annualized interest, had experienced a bank run and has shut its doors. The Age has the story.

On a brighter side, an owner of a private SL island has minted his own very real coins (pictured above). Via 3pointD.com.