Video ads could adapt to viewers’ emotions

Vyking is using webcams to analyze viewers' real-time emotional responses to ads, and adapting content according to engagement.

We’ve previously seen a platform offering viewer-engagement analytics to advertisers through facial-recognition and billboards that evolve according to passerby reception. Now, a Berlin-based startup is aiming to use similar tech to deliver emotion-sensitive adverts.

Vyking’s ‘ReactivAds’ — which will require users to opt-in and let advertisers access their device’s cameras — employ sophisticated algorithms to measure the subtlest changes in the viewer’s micro-emotions, and processes the feedback into a backend API. This can be added into existing data analysis platforms and actual footage will not be saved. ReactivAds also recognize age, gender and ethnicity, combining with GPS to enable companies to deliver hyper-contextual adverts. With ReactivAds, publishers not only receive highly-accurate performance indicators, they will be able to use the data to adapt ads while they run, enhancing the content’s effectiveness with individual viewers.