The rumor has it that shelves can now track age and gender of passing customers. That is, in the global supermarket Mondelez they can, thanks to Microsoft Kinect. Sensors placed on the shelves stacked with groceries will track who’s looking at the goods, how old they are, and what’s their gender. The data is intended for marketing purposes, like tailoring specific messages to the target demographic or offering real-time utility as Hellmann’s mayo did in Brazil. Hellman’s used data to assemble recipes on the fly for the customers who put Hellmann’s mayo in their cart. The utility of data doesn’t have to stop there, though: it can potentially be a really good source of research on human decision-making and the influence of the context on the way we choose, making marketing both more efficient for the brands and more useful to consumers.
Further reading: Future of Retail by FactCo Labs