Only for Girls! New Interactive 'Gender Biased' Ad on London's Oxford Street

In what could be the first of its kind, London will play host to an interactive advertisement, to be installed on a bus shelter outside Selfridges on Oxford Street.

The ad, a 40-second clip, has been designed to play specifically for women... and women only!

It has been planned and executed by a children's charity, Plan UK, and will go on display from Feb. 22.

The ad uses facial recognition software, with an attached HD camera, to determine whether a man or woman is standing in front of the screen. The programme then shows content based on that reading.

Therefore, if a man stands in front of the screen, it will direct him to the charity's campaign Web site; the makers are reporting a 90 per cent success rate with the programme.

The system uses a camera to guess the viewer's gender by measuring the distance between the eyes, the width of the nose, the length of the jaw line and the shape of the cheekbone. Importantly, none of the data recorded is stored.

Meanwhile, if it is a woman or a girl in front of the screen, the programme shows an ad about three 13-year-old girls - Jasmine from the UK, Bintou from Mali and Sur from Thailand. The advertisement, which has the girl's voices intercut with everyday footage of their lives, aims to highlight issues women and girls in developing countries face daily. These include problems associated with poverty and discrimination.

As part of the charity's "Because I Am A Girl" campaign, the ad will have a two-week trial and the charity is hoping to make £250,000 over the four months the campaign will run. In addition, they are hoping to raise some £4 million by June 2016. The ad itself, meanwhile, will have a two-week trial run at its current location.

"Plan's "Because I am a Girl" campaign works with women and men, girls and boys, to challenge the discrimination that girls face as a result of their gender," Marie Staunton, Chief Executive of Plan UK said in a statement published on the Web site.