In a preferred embodiment, advertising display 110 can change over time. For example, the display is a billboard with vertically rotating members as known in the art, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,572,816, “Rotating advertising sign with rotating louvers,” issued to Anderson on Nov. 12, 1996, incorporated herein by reference. Alternatively, the display uses one or more television screens, or rear projection, or a large scale liquid crystal display (LCD) screen. In any case, the processor 130 can determine, via a connection 131, which advertisement is being displayed at any time, and for how long. It is possible that the advertising schedule is downloaded to the processor ahead of time, or after the fact when face time is being determined, as described herein.
It is also possible that the advertising display 110 is dynamically updated by the processor 130 depending on demographics of consumers in the scene, as described in greater detail below.
The camera 120 is arranged to view a scene 101, for example, a sidewalk outside a store, spectators in a stadium, or an arcade inside a shopping mall. The camera acquires periodically images 121 of the scene. For example, the camera is a video camera and acquires images at a rate of thirty frames per second. Other frame rates can also be used. It should also be noted that the camera can be a pan-tilt-zoom camera to acquire more detailed images of the scene 101.
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By tracking the faces in a sequence of images, it is possible to measure and sum 240 the amount of time 133 each face is oriented at the display to obtain the total face time 135. The time can be determined by counting the number of frames in which each face appeared. This enables advertising to be sold by the total face time 135. It is also possible to threshold the time for each face so that only casual glances at the display are not considered.
It should be noted, that other known face-based computer vision techniques can also be applied to determine demographics 250 of the faces, such as gender, age, and race. The demographics can be correlated 132 with the face time 133.
It is also possible to perform face recognition 260 to perform long term tracking of identified faces 134, see U.S. Pat. No. 7,031,499, “Object Recognition System,” issued to Viola et al. on Apr. 18, 2006, incorporated herein by reference. It should be noted, that all of these computer vision techniques can use the same so robust ‘Viola-Jones’ rectangular filtering procedure, greatly simplifying the processing.
Metering face time and demographics enables new business methods. These include the following.
An advertisement is displayed for a predetermined amount of time, but the fee depends upon the actual face time hours for the advertisement.
The advertiser pays for a predetermined amount of face time, and the advertisement is displayed until this amount is reached. It should be noted that an advertisement can be displayed intermittently with other advertisements. The advertising schedule can then correlate face times with particular advertisements.
An advertiser is guaranteed a predetermined amount of face time for a certain time interval. If the face time is not met, an accommodation is made, such as running the advertisement longer, or rebating part of the fee.
Advertisers may desire an independent verification of the face time data. An auditing service can provide the equipment, and determines face time statistics. The statistics can be provided in real-time to help determine specific advertisements to display.
As described above, computer vision techniques can be used extract demographic information in real-time from the images. This enables advertising pricing to be determined by face time for particular demographic groups.
In addition to demographic information, the system can also recognize other object features of interest to advertisers. For example, a laser eye surgery service may wish to target consumers wearing glasses, and the system could be configured to track face time of just this group of consumers.
For changeable displays, the display typically switches among different advertisers. If the pricing is based on face time of particular groups, then it is desirable to change advertisement are being shown and for how long dependent upon demographics of current viewers so as to maximize the value of the displayed advertisements.
The embodiments can be combined with other known processes. For example, face time pricing can be weighted by the number of unique consumers. These variations are within the scope of the current invention.
It is also possible to place one or more cameras at locations. Despite different viewpoint, it is still possible to determine which faces are oriented towards the advertising display 110.
Although the invention has been described by way of examples of preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that various other adaptations and modifications may be made within the spirit and scope of the invention. Therefore, it is the object of the appended claims to cover all such variations and modifications as come within the true spirit and scope of the invention.