The photos and selfies you just posted on your Instagram account may contain much more useful information for some people, than a smile, a capture of a moment, or a landscape.
As an extensive article by the Wall Street Journal states, data such as what we are wearing, whether we are happy or sad, what we are holding in our hands, etc. are some of the elements that can be valuable to advertisers and modern marketers, helping them create even more targeted campaigns, based on tastes and trends.
For this reason, a new crop of marketing companies have begun to "comb" and analyze photos that appear on sites like Instagram, Flickr, and other photo-sharing sites in order to "catch" the above, valuable data for them. One of them, Ditto Labs Inc. uses sophisticated software that scans our photos to identify logos and map the context in which they appear (is someone wearing a North Face in the photo? Is he holding a Coke? Coke, etc.). As the publication reports, mega-brands like Kraft Food pay companies like Ditto Labs to identify logos of their products on Instagram and Tumblr, which attract younger ages, and then analyze them along with which competing brands they consume, and how much they seem to enjoy them.
The company then categorizes the unsuspecting users into categories like “connoisseur” and “sports fan” based on how and where they consume the products. Other companies, such as Piquora Inc., TIME reports, may store huge amounts of personal photos for several months in order to analyze trends and mass tastes over time.
This new crop of digital marketing, and the data mining methods they employ, is a reminder that once we hit 'post' to share our photos with friends and followers, publishing them robs us of control over who uses them and how. "This is an area where commercial exploitation and aggressive marketing thrive and flourish," admits Joni Lupovitz, vice president of children's privacy advocacy company Common Sense Media. "It's hard to fathom that just because we were in a certain place and took a photo, that could be used to shape our online profile."
Written by SPYROS VJ
Source: lifo.gr
