Certain times technology advances in a way which can briefly shock you, before you step-back and realise this is the future. ‘Monolith’ – a hardware device which tracks your “real life” engagement from users and customers, categorising by various criteria such as gender and age, is a perfect example of one of these technologies.
The hardware side of Monolith is actually just a Microsoft Kinect housed in the company’s own grey, subtle casing – a design most likely suited for purpose, watching you anonymously!
It is the software which is most impressive; utilising “pattern recognition” to monitor such things as a shopper’s habits, tastes, even clothing styles. This means the software will pick up exactly what products customers interact with most and what they are looking at in stores.
The analytics are all displayed digitally so brands can tailor their campaigns most optimally to cater for certain demographics. The brands initially signed up include; Nike, Johnson&Johnson, and the Estonia-based company are currently in talks with Bogner.
You may be thinking this’ll be privacy uproar, surely? But Monolith’s developers say they make it impossible to personally identify the data captured by the device.
Web-based analytics is pretty well covered, with many digital methods of tracking campaigns’ effectiveness and engagement from the likes of services such as Google Analytics. But up until now retail stores have had to pretty much guess what will work best to capture customers.
A quote from Monolith’s site helps to see their theology: “We believe there is no retail in the world that cannot perform at least 1% better. We are giving our 100% for that.”
For more information about Monolith, you can check out their video here.
What do you think about Monolith? Can it help create more engaging experiences through deeper understanding of your clients and customers?
