It was announced this month that Britain’s largest retailer, Tesco, are set to roll out a new initiative to enhance their advertising strategy. The proposed move is to install state of the art screens in Tesco petrol stations that scan consumer’s eyes to determine their age and gender and subsequently show targeted adverts whilst they are waiting to be served.

OptimEyes, developed by Lord Sugar’s company Amscreen, will soon be found in all 450 of Tesco’s petrol stations nationwide. It has also been reported that Tesco has plans to place the scanning screens in to their range of supermarkets.

The adverts shown to consumers will also be tailored to the time of the day and time of the year itself. For example, in the morning, adverts for Red Bull or coffee are more likely to be shown to have the maximum effect.

The announcement has caused controversy in some quarters with people criticising the intrusive nature of the strategy. Tesco and Amscreen have responded to the negativity by declaring that the screens will only place customers into one of three age categories and determine whether they are male or female.

The development of this technology goes some way to show the importance of targeted advertising and the lengths businesses will go in order to get tailored adverts in front of their desired target audience.

As OptimEyes will be showing adverts to an expected 5 million receptive consumers every week, it seems that this technology will soon be common place in petrol stations and shops all over the country. This further highlights the effectiveness of tailored advertising, showing that engagement and connection with a smaller, selected group of consumers is more likely to be successful.