- BRAINTREE, Mass. - Stepping
into a Gap store at the South Shore Shopping Plaza on a recent evening,
Laura Munro became a research statistic.
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- Twelve feet above her, a device resembling a smoke detector,
mounted on the ceiling and equipped with a hidden camera, took a picture
of her head and shoulders. The image was fed to a computer and shipped
to a database in Chicago, where ShopperTrak, a consumer research firm,
keeps count of shoppers using 40,000 cameras placed in stores and malls.
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- ShopperTrak is a leader in "video mining" -
an emerging field in marketing research enabled by technology that can
analyze video images without relying on human eyes.
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- ShopperTrak says it doesn't take pictures of faces. The
company worries that shoppers would perceive that as an invasion of privacy.
But nearly all of its videotaping is done without the knowledge of the
people being taped.
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- "I didn't even know there was a camera up there,"
said Munro, who popped into the mall to find a gift for her 12-year-old
daughter.
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- Using software to gauge the size of the images of people,
a ShopperTrak computer determined Munro was an adult, and thus a bona fide
shopper. Weeding out youngsters is crucial in calculating one of the valuable
bits of data ShopperTrak sells - the percentage of shoppers who buy and
the percentage who only browse. It arrives at this data by comparing the
number of people taped entering the store with the number of transactions.
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- Of the millions of shoppers videotaped daily in the United
States, many know security cameras are watching. But far fewer consumers
know they are being filmed for market research.
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- ShopperTrak discloses its clients, which include Gap
and its Banana Republic unit; Limited Brands, and its Victoria's Secret
chain; PaylessShoe Source; American Eagle Outfitters; and Children's Place
Retail Stores.
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- Several other research companies that videotape shoppers
say their clients want the taping to be secret - and worry that shoppers
would feel alienated or complain of privacy invasion if they knew.
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- Katherine Albrecht, founder of Caspian, a consumer-advocacy
group, says consumers have "no idea such things as video tracking
are going on" and should be informed. When she tells them about such
activities, she says the response she often hears is, "Isn't this
illegal, like stalking? Shouldn't there be a law against it?" No state
laws forbid retailers from videotaping shoppers for research.
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- Some research companies' cameras, with lenses as small
as a quarter, can provide data on everything from the density of shopping
traffic in an aisle to the reactions to the latest plasma-TV set. The cash
register is a popular spot for cameras, too. But cameras also can be found
in banks, fast-food outlets and hotel lobbies.
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