Buying eyeballs

Blog by Ronan Tighe

Web analytics has made it easy to find the return on investment in online advertising. Advertisers can tell which ads are working, where the most effective adspace is hosted, and which combinations of copy and location bring the most profitable customers.

Inspired by the online experience, ad execs long to measure other channels with the same precision. That’s why we’re pestered to press the red button when watching telly, which would take us into a more measurable realm. Magazine adverts are peppered with vanity URLs, which provide a tailored landing page for a particular campaign and count every visitor in and out again.

Now professor Roel Vertegaal, from Queen’s University in Canada, has developed a device called Eyebox2 to count how many people look at an advert as they walk past it. It uses a camera to look into the eyes of passers-by, and is claimed to be effective up to ten metres away. Unlike eye-tracking for usability studies, it requires no calibration.

The tool could be a good way to test whether an advert can catch the attention of the passing public, although only user tests can reveal whether people get the right message.

If widely used, the technology could usher in a new era of street advertising, where companies pay for results and buy ‘eyeballs’ instead of ‘opportunities to view’. But at a cost of over £500 per unit, they will be restricted to experimental deployments for some time.