PC-WELT
Von eng_art
IDGNS
01.07.2005 00:00

Business Applies Video Surveillance to Marketing

Video surveillance is the processes and technologies that allow you to visually monitor someone or something using video, infrared visuals or the heat signatures of objects. Monitoring is often done surreptitiously , but overt surveillance is becoming prevalent, especially in public places. In Baltimore County, Md., a recently passed law requires shopping centers with more than 15 stores to survey their parking lots.

When did video surveillance become a marketing tool?

Traditionally surveillance was strictly for security -- deterring theft and bad people doing generally bad things. But a phenomenon has emerged since all these new cameras have been deployed. In some cases, the primary purpose of a new video surveillance deployment isn't security, but marketing.

How so?

Companies are using video to measure footfalls in stores and within subsections of stores. They map traffic -- where someone walks, where they stop and for how long -- to see how people browse. Why do they tend to stop longer in one spot? Is there something there that's drawing them? Are there "blind spots" in the store where people are missing good products? There's any number of things you can look for.

The visual data is used to reconfigure store interiors to maximize marketing and drive sales. Outside the store, surveillance of mall parking lots can spot where traffic backups occur, so trouble spots can be reconfigured in ways that make it easier to park -- and shop. The applications are just starting to emerge; many more will come.

Surveillance can't be trendy and cool, can it?

Yes, it can. The video surveillance sector is forecast to expand 17 percent this year; sales of certain technologies, such as networked video and emerging IP-based video, will grow even faster. People love cameras.

Wow. What's the deal with that?

After the terrorist attacks on this country, many people turned to surveillance as a way to combat the threat. Surveillance is also hot because the technology has improved markedly in the past three years and it continues to evolve rapidly. Once, surveillance was mostly closed circuit television systems (CCTV) connected to small blue-white monitors that required viewing by individuals. Today it's Internet-based, IP-based and smart. Cameras are intelligent enough to alert staff only when they see something move.

They can also be monitored remotely, meaning one staff in one room can monitor many locations around the world, eliminating the need for staffing at each site. And the quality of camera optics and the images they produce has vastly improved over the CCTV days. Cameras are smaller, better and relatively cheap, and they're being placed almost everywhere.

They're not watching me in the bathroom, are they?

No. Long-standing laws prevent companies and anyone else from surveilling you in places where you have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" -- including bathrooms, dressing rooms and locker rooms. Beyond that, private companies are remarkably free to use surveillance where and when they want. Governments and municipalities face trickier privacy questions than the private sector.

It still sounds like an evil, Orwellian trend.

It certainly has the potential to be abused, and privacy advocates are extremely troubled by both the pervasiveness of this new generation of video surveillance and the acceptance of it. Some cities have wired cameras to watch certain streets. To prevent shoplifting, one company tried to use a "smart shelf" in drugstores that photographed anyone who took a product off it. Such surveillance has triggered storms of criticism. Clearly, privacy and ethics must be considered before any deployment.