Big Brother: Coming Soon To A Snack-Food Aisle Near You!
Between the NSA listening to our phone calls and Google peeking at our inboxes, it’s beginning to feel like privacy is dead in America… and this next bit of news isn’t going to help: Mondelez International, which produces popular brands like Chips Ahoy, Nabisco, and Ritz recently announced plans to spy on shoppers in the snack food aisle.
According to a report in the Washington Post, the company wants to install Microsoft’s Kinect cameras that will be able to determine the age and sex of passing customers by analyzing facial features and bone structure. Once the camera has scanned you, the digitalized display will cough up in-store commercials or coupons designed to get you to buy those cookies or chips.
Sound creepy? It is. In an effort to make the marketing ploy sound like less of a violation, Mondelez chief information officer Mark Dajani told the Wall Street Journal that pictures of your actual face won’t be stored. The all-seeing snack food shelf would only be used to aggregate demographic data from thousands of transactions. Suuuure.
Mondelez, and the other brands sure to follow suit if the idea is a success, hopes putting Big Brother in the snack aisle will convince more people to choose their product, but I’m hopeful that it will have just the opposite effect.
If there’s anything that will help me to avoid the chips and candy aisle altogether, it’s the idea that I’ll be facially-assessed by some camera and digitally shamed into buying the box of crackers I picked up is enough to make me swear off junk food completely.
How about you?
Related on Organic Authority:
Will Your Baby Be A Junk Food Junkie?
Scientists Paid To Promote Junk Food
Image: kennymatic
