Renowned for his intensity, Shea Weber (an imposing defenceman for the Montreal Canadiens, the legendary NHL team) was the perfect person to certify McDonald’s Mighty Angus Burger this year.

We decided to see if consumers were equally worthy of the Mighty Angus. And the only way to find out: a duel. So we developed facial-recognition technology that could detect eye movements and integrated it into a downtown bus shelter. This technology, which had to take into account several factors including changes in brightness and a participant’s size, supported an incredibly simple game—the first one to blink loses. Winners and losers were each treated to a randomly selected pre-recorded reaction from Shea Weber.

The final tally was nearly 5,000 interactions in a month, some exceeding 30 seconds. Who says people don’t spend time looking at OOH advertising?

The technology followed a well-defined process:

? A camera filmed continuously within a pre-determined frame.

? Software analyzed the image to detect a person’s face, and then their eyes.

? It then analyzed the shape of the eyes to determine whether they were open or closed.

? It then sent a signal to start the game.

? A countdown let the player know when the game would start.

? The software randomly displayed one of three videos showing Shea Weber staring down his adversary. Each sequence lasted a different length of time.

? The software compared the moment the player blinked and the length of the video sequence, in real time.

? If the participant blinked first, the software displayed one of three “defeat” video clips.

? If Shea Weber blinked first, the software displayed one of three “victory” video clips.

? The game would reset after the previous step.