• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, April 14, 2011

PQ chief Patrick Quinn, and moderator of the opening Big Buyers panel at MediaPost's Digital Out-of-Home Forum in New York, opened things up with a question about the potential of "revolutionary" media buying systems that could utilize "facial recognition" technology to automatically know who's standing in front of a digital OOH screen.

Tim Hanlon, founder of Interpublic's Velociter unit, and a next generation kind of guy, said we're practically there, and that the digital out-of-home market is close to the "Minority Report" era vision of screens knowing who you are and talking to you on that basis. Hanlon said it's an extension of the overall direction of all "IP" based content and data, and the ability to serve advertising based on who someone is.

Hanlon's fellow panelists, especially former Starcom colleague Jack Sullivan, concurred that the technology is on the cusp – hence the majority report view of the minority report developinment – but Posterscope chief Connie Garrido pointed out that the industry still doesn't have basic, standardized digital out-of-home media buying systems in place. And that might be the first necessary step.