Results

Competition in the online marketplace is stiff: your customers have shrinking attention spans, demand instant gratification, and your competitors are just a click away. Websites must find ever more unique ways to attract and retain visitors. The newest trend in attention-grabbing technology is to use avatars or digital personalities to engage your site’s visitors in face-to-face interaction. Retailers and service companies are using these “3-D” hosts to make the online shopping and commerce experience more familiar and engaging. Rovion’s model InPerson, Oddcast’s SitePal, and Innovate Ads’ Video Spokesperson are great applications that allow you to incorporate an interactive personality on your webpage.

SitePal uses an avatar model, providing personalized spokespeople to their clients. Animated characters are customized in various configurations, and SitePal allows you to choose skin, hair, and eye color, clothing options, voices, and backdrops for their animated characters (their demo lounge even has a Benjamin Franklin model). Clients can choose to submit a digital photo to SitePal from which a 3-D character can be generated. Personalities can be programmed to speak in 14 different languages, and clients can record their own audio content for upload or hire a voice actor. Many companies, including Swedish furniture giant IKEA, are using these avatars as an interactive“FAQ” bank. IKEA’s “Ask Anna” avatar answers typed questions with a smile, responding to insults saying, “You are entitled to your own opinion, of course. Now, please ask me something about IKEA.” And she even gives a little smirk.

InPerson works on a similar principle, but this application uses video of real people to grab the attention of site visitors. These video clips can walk across the screen, point out site features, and deliver audio messages about promotions or special events. 1-800-FLOWERS utilized InPerson to make customers aware of a special offer; spokesmodel “Megan” encourages visitors to use her name as a promotional discount code at checkout. Site owners can choose from a bank of spokespeople or use their own actors or employees as characters. These real-life streaming videos can arrest the attention of site visitors and add interest to an otherwise average-looking page.

Innovate Ads offers three different products to incorporate video into your site. They can create a video spokesperson, similar to InPerson, but they have the added services of online video ads and “video snacks,” short pieces to grab attention and provide information on each page throughout the site.

But how do users respond to face-to-face interaction on the web? Rovion’s metrics indicate engagement rates of 30 to 70 percent, meaning visitors either watched more than half of the video message or clicked on the character. Sounds like mixed results. Many web surfers are simply annoyed by intrusive video or audio applications, especially when they come in the form of pop-up advertising. However, if you use a digital character that is well-integrated, easy to engage or disable, and informative, they can be a very effective way to grab a visitor’s attention. Digital personalities can lead to higher response rates, name recognition, visitor retention, and, the ultimate goal, increased revenues. We suggest designing a character that represents your target persona and reflects your branding: think about the tone, appearance, and interactive opportunities of any personality you display on your sites. If you are thoughtful and calculated, your visitors will feel like they’re interacting with one of their own, and they will recognize themselves as a part of your company’s culture. Best of all, you have a chance to show your sense of good old-fashioned customer service by greeting even your online customers with a smiling face.

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 Both comments and pings are currently closed.

By Haley January Eckels