L'Oréal Paris leveraging technology to target ads based on hair color found in photos

NEW YORK — Beauty company L'Oréal Paris has applied image recognition technology to target product ads based on the hair color identified in photos of faces for its Ombré campaign, which is now live on GumGum's in-image advertising platform.



The campaign features a technique offered exclusively by GumGum, whose image scientists have created an algorithm to detect hair color within millions of photos across the editorial content of its publisher partners' sites. In turn, a corresponding in-image ad — such as an ad for dark hair-coloring products based on an image known to contain brown or black hair — is served.



A second-year client of GumGum, L'Oréal Paris was among the first to capitalize on GumGum's Canvas takeover unit for a 2013 campaign; the Canvas takeover also is part of the creative mix for Ombré. In addition, the campaign capitalizes on another first, an in-image "slider" unit, enabling all of Ombré's color products to be included in the creative when ads appear over photos unrelated to hair, GumGum stated.



The campaign targets images and pages with keywords related to hair care, beauty and L'Oréal Paris products, as well as sites that reach women ages 18 years to 40 years who frequent fashion, beauty and lifestyle verticals across the GumGum platform.