The Brief

The campaign slogan for hair care brand PANTENE was, “You can look forward, with beautiful hair.” The goal was to send the brand message to the young female target audience, especially in a manner of one-to-one communication in a new way. Our solution was to create a digital signage that interacts only to you. Our team was in charge of creative and engineering for the new communication of PANTENE. And so we have developed the world’s first individual face recognition communication, “face_in.” This technology has already been released and used in multiple digital signage and at many PANTENE events this year.

“face_in” is a completely new technology, separate from the normal face recognition which can detect only your sex and age group. This technology can detect each and everyone separately by calculating the face ratio of each participant. Referring to the situation in Japan, people still have a strong resistance for having their picture or video taken from any device in public space, even if it were for security reasons. But the “face_in” solution overcame the problem in two ways. First of all, it was the world’s first entertainment content, and it could react only after the participant has agreed and registered beforehand and can provide surprises never experienced before. Secondly, the technology doesn’t need to record each face photo at any public space, because it only captures the unique points and ratios of the face. Like the distance between the eyes, nose and mouth and so on in a fraction of a second. The technology was installed in digital signage in Tokyo. Normally the signage will show a still photo of a woman with beautiful hair looking backwards. But when a registered participant stands in front, the woman in the signage will turn around to look forward at you. Showing a personalized message from PANTENE with their name inside. It was also combined with digital mirrors as well. When the participants use the new PANTENE hair oil in front of the mirror, their name will be called out correctly from their own personal avatar using synthesized sounds. “face_in” was also combined with a special vending machine, so when the participant’s face was detected a PANTENE bottle would pop out as a gift.

The “face_in” solution could be added onto any existing digital signage that has already been installed in any public space, business district or mall. The technology is strongly appreciated by PANTENE, and has been implemented at all special events for the past 6 months this year. “face_in” provided a new way of communicating and created a fan base platform for PANTENE. The technology was incredible with over 8,390 participants combined, with 98.8% accuracy.