20 June 2005

Advertising awakes pupils' imagination

Imagine a world where every advert you saw was for something that you wanted to buy, and every restaurant that you visited knew exactly what you wanted to eat - that's the world being considered by local school pupils taking part in the Strathmore Trophy competition on Tuesday 21st June 2005 at the Applied Computing Division of the University of Dundee. This may soon also be the world that we all live in, as the computing technique of "user profiling2 is adopted by advertisers allowing them to use information about our habits, likes and dislikes to target us with just what we want to see - a sort of friendly Big Brother!

12 teams from secondary schools across the region from Arbroath to Pitlochry are taking part in the competition, hoping to collect the Strathmore Trophy and £100 worth of computer equipment for their school. Mary, Countess of Strathmore, donated the magnificent trophy for the competition, which is now in its tenth year, and will present the trophy to the winners.

Lecturer Iain Murray, one of the competition organisers, said "User profiling is a powerful tool for advertising and marketing, but some people would consider it intrusive or even sinister, and we wanted the pupils to think about the potential benefits and drawbacks of it." It is one of the topics which students at the University of Dundee consider in the new e-Commerce degree programme. The Strathmore Trophy competition is held annually by Applied Computing to get local school pupils thinking about applications of computer technology to help people.

For further information, please contact: Louisa Cross, Applied Computing Division, University of Dundee. (01382) 344151 Fax: (01382) 345509 e-mail: lcross@computing.dundee.ac.uk

DIRECTIONS TO APPLIED COMPUTING.

The competition and prizegiving will take place on the first floor of the Microcentre Building in Park Wynd, close to the Chaplaincy and opposite the white Jam Factory building on the University campus.

By Roddy Isles, Head of Press 01382 344910, out of hours: 07968298585, r.isles@dundee.ac.uk