Targeting customers using audio waves

Agenda reports on a new way for marketers to target customers: audio technology that transmits sound in a beam like a light beam, so a specific customer by sending a message directly to their ear. Holosonic Research Labs Inc. are the creators of the audio spotlight, which is now being used in a wide variety of places already such as in supermarkets as well as doctors offices. Using this method, advertisers can target only the specific customer rather than disturbing the entire store with loudspeaker announcements.

Unlike traditional speakers, which broadcast sound in every direction, sound from an audio spotlight speaker can be focused directly at one spot, so no one else can hear it, or projected against a surface so that sound appears to come from the surface itself.

For example, a box of Fruity Pebbles can advertise its nutritional content, heard by shoppers only as they walk by boxes in the cereal aisle. The audio spotlight uses ultrasound to stimulate the air into making sound, which is emitted in focused, laser-like beams.