While a flippant ‘Minority Report’ comparison presents itself far too easily in a case like this, several companies coming out of Tokyo have begun experimenting and testing out a new, more accurate form of ‘targeted advertising’. DISCLAIMER: this is not Google’s targeted ads. That highly scrutinized form of targeted adverts, in comparison would be much too pedestrian (pun intended). This is different. This is new. This is body scanning, human detecting, Carl Sagan levels of Science Fiction ‘targeted advertising’. This is scary.

Essentially the digital billboard, if all testing goes well, would contain the technology to instantly identify the age and gender of anyone who happens to grace in front of its attached cameras. From there the billboard will churn out tailored advertisements focusing on what it thinks you would want to see/eat/read/do.

In Tokyo, Digital Billboards are being tested to scan pedestrians for their interests.

Is this a good thing?

The very idea of having targeted ads brings a feeling of importance to the person in focus. The consumer is able to suspend disbelief (“this is not a computer program”) in favor of feeling special (“this understands me”).

While this is only the tip of an ever increasing iceberg of personalized technological advancements in the marketing and ad world, don’t be surprise one day if a billboard displays your secret fetish of wearing 1940’s women’s undergarments or that weird Justin Bieber crush you’ve been trying to keep under wraps.

You’ve been briefed.