Marmite ‘TasteFace’ Takes Facial Recognition to the Next Level

Marmite, Unilever’s famous spread, has launched a new digital experience that analyses your emotions whilst you taste Marmite, to discover, in real-time, whether you are likely to be born a lover or a hater. The technology has been developed by digital creative agency AnalogFolk.

Visit tasteface.marmite.co.uk on your mobile and try some Marmite. TasteFace and the facial recognition technology will tell you your fate based on your facial expressions. For the first time bespoke facial recognition software understands a grimace vs a smile, a “yuk” vs a “yum”.

Not only that, Marmite’s new web app also understands and recognises the complexity of emotion between your love and hate for the sticky stuff, rating it from 0 to 100%.

The new technology builds on the Microsoft Emotion API that recognises the facial expressions of people across a set of eight emotions; including anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, neutral, sadness and surprise. AnalogFolk has built a bespoke algorithm to convert these eight emotions into a sliding scale of love and hate.

Philippa Atkinson, Brand Manager Marmite at Unilever explains: “With TasteFace we are encouraging the British public to try Marmite, butter their toast and discover their fate – are they lovers or haters? We know that some people have written off Marmite in the past, so innovations like TasteFace, while fun, also serve a real purpose, by encouraging people to give it a go!”

Miguel Alvarez, Director of Technology Services at AnalogFolk explains “Developing TasteFace has given us the opportunity to build complex facial recognition technology into a fun, shareable experience for the family.”

TasteFace cleverly encourages consumers to try Marmite, and at the end of the experience, they are prized with a customisable reaction GIF to share across their own social channels, announcing their lover or hater status. The experience also has multi-user functionality, and can be passed around a group to produce a combined shareable asset – ideal for families to enjoy.

TasteFace forms part of a new integrated campaign, The Marmite Gene Project, launched recently from Marmite, in partnership with leading scientists, to promote the groundbreaking discovery which has shown that people are born genetically more likely to be lovers or haters of the Marmite gene.

The experience is accompanied by a suite of social assets from AnalogFolk, featuring the stars of the TV campaign, encouraging consumers to take the test on TasteFace.

Marmite’s agency partners include creative agency Adam&EveDDB, media agency Mindshare, brand experience design agency Hornall Anderson and PR agency W Communications.

So grab a jar, take the test and find out for yourself: are you born a lover or a hater?

Source: AnalogFolk

  Adam&EveDDB, AnalogFolk, Campaign, Digital, Facial Recognition, Food, Hornall Anderson, Marketing, Marmite, Mindshare, Mobile, TasteFace, Technology, The Marmite Gene Project, UK, Unilever