METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATIC SELECTION AND PRESENTATION OF SALES PROMOTION PROGRAMS

A sales promotion program is dynamically selected from a plurality of programs for presentation in a program presentation unit by a neural network that makes its selection based on first detecting if a person is in the area immediately around the program presentation unit, then either selecting a general attract loop sales promotion program with the trained neural network using a set of predetermined system criteria if no person is detected in the immediate area or selecting a specific loop sales promotion program if at least one person is detected in the immediate area. The neural network is trained by selecting general attract loop programs that are run and then collecting data indicative of the number of persons responding to the general attract loop and also by selecting specific loop programs that are run if a person is in the immediate area and then collecting data indicative of the responses to the specific loop programs. The collected data thereby represents the success of the various sales programs in attracting and holding the attention of persons. The collected data is provided to the neural network in any one of a plurality of training schemes typical for neural networks, after which the trained neural network is provided with current, real-time selection data such that the trained network can select the most appropriate sales promotion program for running. The network can be retrained at regular intervals or in response to sales data or changes in the collected data.