Facial Profiler was a free Facebook app created to promote Coca-Cola Zero by the advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky.[1][2] The app used face recognition technology to search a database of voluntarily participating Facebook users to match people based on appearance.[2][3][4] The software's algorithm analyzed face attributes like skin color, face structure and angles of the face.[1] Once matched, users could contact their look-alike via their Facebook profile.[1][2][4][3][5]
Coke Zero claimed the inspiration for Facial Profiler came from the drink itself.[1][4][5][6][7] The tagline for the project was: "If Coke Zero has Coke's taste, is it possible someone out there has your face?"[7]
Facial Profiler's initial phase, launched in September 2009, involved the creation of a "face database".[1][4][6] Faces were gathered from photos that users personally uploaded and tagged to Facebook, stored photos uploaded from user hard drives and webcam photos taken via the app itself.[1][3] Once the database gathered a statistically significant number of faces from both genders, various age groups and multiple ethnicities – the matching process began on December 3, 2009.[3] Reportedly, more than 288,000 people installed the application by December 2009.[1]
When a match was generated, a corresponding percentage of accuracy was assigned to the match.[5][6] As more users submitted photos, the match accuracy was to increase.[5] Users could vote on the accuracy of their match and other matches.[4][5][6]
The app adhered to Facebook privacy policies.[4] It only searched photos of those who have voluntarily opted into the app. It removed user photos from their database if the user uninstalled the app.[4][5][6][7]
