Guest article, by Stephen Allen, Lightvert

If you travel on public transport you will have noticed many advertisements are now digital, smart, changed at the press of a button.  In the movies we’ve seen images of the future with brands displayed everywhere (remember The Fifth Element and Minority Report?).

Here are 4 other world-changing technologies you should be aware of. You’ll be experiencing them as consumers and possibly using them in your own businesses sooner than you think.

Personalised Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) arrived in our family life with Pokémon Go. For the first time we experienced mixing the real world with digital information as hugely entertaining. Now imagine if AR could trigger an advert that was relevant to you.  Tapping into a viewer’s profile data, might for example, display an Audi SUV ad to an expectant family, or an ad for a sports car model if you are young and single (or happily retired!).

Conceive a future where we are all wearing AR hardware, and old-fashioned billboards will be converted into large blank canvasses. They will be anchor points for AR messages. This could make it possible, for example, to use the side of motorways for this new advertising medium to narrowly target car passengers wearing the AR devices without distracting the car driver.

Augmented Reality – without a device

Using phones, glasses or tablets, AR allows content creators to manipulate the environment outside the home. What about a new type of AR that works without a device?

Technologies are being developed that will work with our natural optical biology or the geometry of the landscape. Our own outdoor laser-projected technology, ECHO, for example, can create powerful, fleeting images using the sides of tall buildings.  Through the effect of ‘Persistence of Vision’, you’ll see giant image dominating the city skyline without requiring any hardware.

The Impact of Machine Learning

Behind the scenes, machine-learning is changing our online lives but how will it change our lives away from our PCs and laptops?

Smart ads are currently managed by analysing data to pinpoint the optimum location and timing to display an advert to a specific target audience. Imagine if an intelligent algorithm could react to events as they happen. As you shiver on a snowy train platform, the advert opposite you changes to tempt you with hot chocolate. As the sun bursts through the clouds it switches to selling you a summer holiday. This intelligent machine-thinking is already here, with companies developing tools which enable brand adverts to adapt to external stimuli.

Personalised retail shopping

Minority Report often comes to mind when discussing the shopping experience of the future. Do you sometimes feel as if Facebook knows you better than you know yourself? What would it be like if your shopping mall or local shop had this kind of information about you too? There is technology already available to advertisers to help them create connected personalised adverts inside stores and at point-of-sale. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies can track and learn your buying habits. All aimed at selling more to you as consumers and in the future enabling you to sell more as entrepreneurs.

About the author

Stephen Allen is from Lightvert, whose revolutionary ECHO technology creates the world’s largest digital outdoor images creating an eye-catching spectacle and unlocking new, high value advertising real estate. http://www.lightvert.co.uk/