»
The planned rollout of a radio-frequency ID system to track promotional displays in 5,000 Walgreens stores is raising objections from privacy groups that worry about future consumer tracking, AdAge reports.
The system, created by Goliath Solutions, uses RFID to track when, how long and where displays are placed in stores, allowing marketers to track results of promotions by store or demographic cluster. Manufacturers can also time local, regional or national advertising according to when displays are in place and send representatives to stores that haven’t put up displays.
Even though the Walgreens installation would not involve placing chips on packages used by consumers, privacy group Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering cites two patents and two pending applications by Goliath that envision extending the system to track individual consumers in stores and target ads to them at home by using RFID chips embedded in loyalty cards.
“I couldn’t speculate on the future and I could never say never about anything,” a Walgreens spokesman said. “All we’re doing at this point is looking at using this technology to get better performance out of our displays in the stores, and that’s it.” Walgreens doesn’t have loyalty cards, he said.
All sectors of the media business will suffer from the weakened economy in 2008 and 2009, with a slump in local advertising particularly hurting newspapers and local TV, according to a new projection from Goldman Sachs.
Broadcast nets will experience…
The New York Times is shuttering its International Herald Tribune site; NYTimes.com will soon host the international news normally reserved for its sister website.
The move is not about cost savings, but rather about growth, NYTimes.com general manager Vivian Schiller…
Unilever’s Vaseline set forth on an unusual research project in a small town in Alaska. Setting up a storefront, the company began giving away free bottles of lotion and asking recipients to name the person who had recommended they come…
Meet the Press, the show hosted by Tim Russert for 17 years before his death last June, is beginning to slip in ratings.
Last month, CBS’s Face the Nation pulled ahead of Meet the Press for the first time in two…
Bloggers collectively create nearly one million blog posts each day, and half of bloggers believe blogs will be a primary source of news and entertainment in the next five years, according to Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere Report, MarketingCharts writes.…
Wal-Mart and Costco reported same-store gains in September, with sales rising 2.4% and 9% respectively. Sales at Target stores open at least a year fell 3%, writes Retailer Daily.
Below, fiscal results from the discount retail giants:
Sales of food and…
