The TV, once a humble cornerstone of your home, will now keep a trained eye on your habits, emotions, and personal beliefs – all to serve ads that are more personalised. That’s only if you own an LG TV, however, which recently partnered with Zenapse to build that very functionality right into its webOS TV software using AI.
The eye of LG
Zenapse is a self-described marketing platform powered by what it calls “AI-powered emotional intelligence.” Specifically, it aims to use its proprietary Large Emotion Model (LEM) (what are these words?) to turn LG’s adware department into a proper powerhouse. Unfortunately, it sounds like it might just work.
“By combining LG’s scale and CTV (Connected TV) expertise with Zenapse’s industry-first emotional AI and psychographic targeting, the companies aim to redefine viewer engagement, personalisation, and campaign performance,” said Zenapse.
Using Zenapse’s LEM technology (known as ZenVision), LG will be able to sort watchers into highly specific marketing categories based on how they interact with the software, and the types of shows they’re watching, typically scrubbed from the film or series’ IMDb page to gather the expected emotional response. It might be time to start looking for a TV without a camera built right into it.
Read More: Samsung’s new Frame Pro upgrades the screen and jacks up the price
From there, it’ll inform the sort of ads shown to you across the webOS homescreen, free ad-supported TV (FAST) channels, and anywhere else LG can squeeze an ad throughout the software, according to StreamTV Insider. The deal allows for full access to ZenVision for as long as the multi-year deal lasts, and also gives Zenapse access to LG’s user data, gathered from the automatic content recognition software already in the TVs.
“As viewers engage with content, ZenVision’s understanding of a consumer grows deeper, and our… segmentation continually evolves to optimise predictions,” ZenVision says.
According to an LG spokesperson, watchers can automatically be separated into categories such as “goal-driven achievers,” “social connectors,” or “emotionally engaged planners.” A guy can’t watch The Wedding Planner once without LG jumping to conclusions, apparently.
Advertisers looking to use LG’s advertising platform can now choose where that ad will go, and more importantly, who it will be shown to. This means more money for the company in the long run, which can charge a whole lot more for placement, now that it’s being shown to people more likely to buy it. It’s a bleak outlook for the future of programmatic advertising, which was already inescapable without AI at the helm.
