杏吧原创

Ad blockers aren鈥檛 going to be useful for much longer. Major entertainment companies including 20^th Century Fox are now using artificial intelligence to digitally insert advertisements and products into movies and TV shows after they have been filmed.

The firms are using technology developed by UK company Mirriad to insert flat posters on buildings, walls and buses in already-filmed scenes and even to add 3D objects. It has the potential to make advertising more targeted and ubiquitous than ever before, and also virtually impossible to avoid. The technology blurs the line between advertising and entertainment, and could take the feel of a production outside a director鈥檚 creative vision for it.

The technique has been used to insert ads into shows such as Modern Family, which is produced by 20^th Century Fox. In the US, Mirriad has also worked with Univision, NBC Universal and Sony Pictures Television so far. In Europe, Mirriad has partnerships with French broadcasters France Television and TF1, and with RTL in Germany. In China, Mirriad-inserted ads have been seen by more than 100 million viewers on video-streaming website Tencent Video.

Mirriad analyses films or TV episodes for space where ads or objects could be inserted, using an AI to identify information about each scene 鈥� whether it鈥檚 on a street, for example, or of a family. The AI creates an inventory of all the potential times and spaces for where ads could be inserted into a film or TV show.

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鈥淲e can recognise all the scenes when people are in an elevator,鈥� says Ann Wang at Tencent Video. It allows them to digitally insert advertising posters onto elevator walls. Other scenes include those shot in living rooms and office meeting rooms, which contain table space where bottles or cups of particular drinks brands can be inserted.

The goal is to train the algorithm to understand emotion, context and continuity across scenes, so that the process of ad insertion can be fully automated, says Mirriad CEO Stephan Beringer.

Mirriad and Tencent Video both have plans under way to tailor these in-video ads to individual viewers. Tencent has the technology to show different advertisements to different people, but hasn鈥檛 yet launched the feature commercially, says Wang. 鈥淥ur goal is definitely to go in that direction,鈥� she says.

Take a scenario in which two people are separately watching a television series. 鈥淵ou would be watching the exact same scene, but we would be seeing different things,鈥� says Beringer 鈥� say, a silver or red car, or different variations of a brand of soft drink. Mirriad can produce several versions of each ad, and what the viewer sees would depend on how the entertainment company targets them.

鈥淐onsumers are not always aware that the commercial content is being blended in with the cultural content,鈥� says Caroline Moraes at the University of Birmingham, UK. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a blurring of lines.鈥�

鈥淚f people are not aware, then you could argue that there is an element of deception there, or that people have not been fully informed of how they鈥檙e being communicated to,鈥� she says.

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Companies have long paid for product placement in entertainment. For example, Reese鈥檚 Pieces appear in the Steven Spielberg film and there are multiple brands featured in the film clip for . But in these examples, it is incorporated during filming.

But there are some specific concerns with ad-insertion technology. For example, actors may be seen to be endorsing items that appear in the scenes with their fictional characters, which they may have little say in because it happens after the fact.

To avoid conflict with pre-existing endorsement deals, Tencent uses technology that recognises well-known actors in its content, to identify scenes where ads shouldn鈥檛 be inserted.

Films may have a theatrical release, followed by distribution on streaming services and network television, as well as internationally. Each round could have different adverts, and whether the money goes towards the distributors or content creators is another consideration, says Beringer.

Creative integrity and continuity within a show or film are also factors. New ads inserted into older content retrospectively may not be in line with what a film or TV director wanted to do, for example.

There are strict rules around product placement, but these may need updating for this more sophisticated and potentially more targeted kind of digitally inserted advertising.

20^th Century Fox and NBC Universal didn鈥檛 respond to New 杏吧原创鈥檚 requests for comment.