Thursday, February 23, 2012

Interactive advert on bus shelter shown only to women

An interactive hoarding at a London bus stop aims to show a 40-second advertisement only to women and girls. The screen showing the short video campaign, by children's charity Plan UK, is located at a bus stop opposite Selfridges on Oxford Street. A camera will measure facial features of the person standing at the screen to decide whether it is a man or a woman. It guesses right 90% of the time.

If it is a male, the screen will direct him to the charity's campaign website. The advertisement highlights the issue of women and girls in developing countries, who face poverty and discrimination, not getting the choice to decide how they want to lead their lives. Males will not get to see the advertisement in order to make them aware about gender discrimination, the charity said.

The advertisement shows three 13-year-old girls - from the UK, Mali and Thailand - talking about their lives. The interactive advertisement, which is available for two weeks from yesterday, cost £30,000 and is activated when the viewer opts to see it. The camera will measure facial features of the viewer - the distance between the eyes, width of the nose, length of jaw line and shape of cheekbone - to estimate the gender.

YouTube link.

None of the data gathered is stored, the charity said. Plan UK said it hoped to raise £250,000 over four months to provide access to education for girls from poor families. Marie Staunton, chief executive of Plan UK, said: "Plan's Because I am a Girl campaign works with women and men, girls and boys, to challenge the discrimination that girls face as a result of their gender."

There's an extended version of the ad here.


kdub said...

I don't get this. They won't show the advertisement to men to make them aware of gender discrimination? So, how do you make someone aware of something by NOT showing them it? Besides, isn't it a good thing not to have to suffer through a 40 second commercial?

Toogie said...

There must not be many people walking by, since most streets would have at least a few males and females going by at the same time.

bashzog said...

kdub: it isn't about the advert. Everyone in the first world knows that gender issues exist in the third world - this is going for the publicity about the advert (eg, this webpage and these comments).

Toogie: that is a good point, I wonder how they set it up. Work whenever a female is present? Only work when no male is present?

Whoever-it-is-who-says-they-could-have-donated-the-30k-to-herp-de-doo: The hope is that they will motivate people to donate more than was invested, which is actually fairly likely. I've seen local, door to door campaigns make more than 10k in two weeks, something designed for internet link sharing should do pretty good.