When it comes to online models,
Louise Guay has high expectations
By Kurt Peters
Few
technologists can claim to have had a direct impact on the way the Internet
is used. Since its inception, the Internet has been a collaborative venture,
with a few break-throughs—like the browser—changing the way people use the web.
But mostly the web has been an accretion of ideas and uses as someone had a
good idea and someone else improved upon it.
But that’s not the case with Louise Guay. While her name is not as well known as Marc Andreessen, who perfected and popularized the browser, or Bill Gates, Guay has been slowly defining her part of the Internet. And even though her product is a small part of the web experience now, her early success indicates it could become a big part of Internet retailing eventually. And if she fulfills her vision, of the Internet itself.
Guay is the founder and brains behind Montreal-based My Virtual Model Inc., the online fitting-room technology that nine web sites use today, including sites of such major online retailers as Lands’ End and retail chains Limited and Lane Bryant. It launched at CrossingPointe.com last November
Since its debut at LandsEnd.com in 1998, My Virtual Model has set the standard for online fitting of apparel. Today, 3 million consumers have created models using the My Virtual Model technology and the company expects as many as 10 million by the end of the year.
While it has competitors, none has had the impact of My Virtual Model. It bought competitor EZSize last June. Rival LuuLuu Inc. has one customer, but no others. A third—FitMe—just released its product. “Louise Guay was one of the first—back three years ago—to see that virtual models had a role on the Internet,” says Bill Bass, senior vice president of e-commerce at Lands’ End Inc., one of the most enthusiastic users of the My Virtual Model technology. “And she’s done a great job of trying to refine the technology to make it evolve with the web.”
A natural growth
Creating a virtual person grew naturally out of Guay’s background. She was always fascinated by acting and after college, where she studied philosophy and aesthetics, she worked on a children’s show for French TV. She produced a show in which a puppet constituted itself on screen. “It was very experimental; very alive,” she says. And it was in some ways the forerunner of online models. “My Virtual Model can exist between reality and virtuality,” she says. “It allows people to imagine who they want to be.”
After TV, the ideas that Guay had for creating virtual identities in an electronic medium stayed with her. After she presented a program of her own writings at McGill University in Montreal, she was approached by an audience member who, while he didn’t understand everything she was trying to communicate from the stage, was intrigued by her ideas. That person ran a research center back in France and he invited Guay to come to the center and work on her concepts for multi-media presentation of ideas.
At the center she came into contact with a group of children who were learning about Middle Ages monasteries and she helped them create a virtual monastery, with computers in each room that explained what the monks did in that room. She then encouraged the children to communicate their interest via computer to children in Canada.
That interest finally led her to the University of Paris where she earned a Ph.D. in multi-media communications in 1986 and used virtual technology to present her thesis. Her interest was in creating a multi-media trans-cultural teaching tool for children around the world to learn about art. She called it the Pocket Museum.
The cost of creating the virtual museum had been high—meaning it was not replicable on a mass scale—and so her Ph.D. committee encouraged her to take her interest in multi-media communication and create a business. In 1990 she started Public Technologies Multimedia Inc., a Canadian multimedia and web site development company that taught corporations how to think and market in multi-media. Ten years later, she re-named the company My Virtual Model to reflect her new focus.
Given that as a child, she was, in her words, “obsessed with Pinocchio” because she liked the artificial intelligence aspect of the puppet, it was a logical leap from the world of puppets and virtual museums to the notion of creating a virtual identity online, she says.
Prodding by customers
Just as thinking about Pinocchio led Guay to the idea of an artificial identity online, Guay’s colleagues give her credit for her ability to quickly see solutions to problems and then follow the idea wherever it leads. In fact, that ability was what led to the creation of My Virtual Model. “She really had the concept years before the technology existed,” says Yona Shtern, chief marketing officer for My Virtual Model. “She has a definitive vision of how this will evolve even when she can’t tell you how it will get there.”
How My Virtual Model developed from its early versions is a good example of how Guay’s and the company’s vision changes as the technology changes. The first models were cartoonish, she admits. Since then the company has worked on making the skin tones and the features more realistic. Furthermore, says Shtern, “When we started, we
didn’t even have a product. This was custom-coded for Lands’ End. But we got some gentle prodding from our clients who told us there was a business in creating these models. They were getting lots of feedback from their customers who were having a great experience with this.”
That feedback encouraged My Virtual Model to proceed, in spite of the drawbacks. “Even though the technology was not completely accurate, people understood the power of the concept,” Guay says. “We knew it would evolve.”
Within a short time of deployment, consumers were expecting the model to be more than a model, Guay recounts. “People were treating it as an intelligent agent,” she says. “They wanted it to send them suggestions.” Furthermore, they wanted to be able to take their models with them as they shopped, they wanted to e-mail the model with outfits to their friends and they wanted to see their own faces on the model.
Over the years, My Virtual Model has speeded up getting the clothes on the model, introduced more accurate fit technology with its acquisition of EZSize and introduced an ASP service so retailers don’t have to host the models themselves.
Today, My Virtual Model is getting the word out about its successes. Over the summer, My Virtual Model trumpeted Lands’ End’s success with the technology. Lands’ End reported that use of the My Virtual Model at LandsEnd.com increased shoppers’ likelihood to buy by 26% and their average order by 13%. Lands’ End and My Virtual Model analyzed transactions between November 2000 and April 2001, with the data coming from Lands’ End’s server logs.
“These new findings prove it’s not only been a great feature our customers value, it’s also produced valuable returns for the company,” Bass says.
And the technology is good for more than online sales. A campaign to promote the use of My Virtual Model technology at Charming Shoppe Inc.’s LaneBryant.com created a boost in offline sales at Lane Bryant stores. Lane Bryant, which specializes in fashions for women size 14 to 28, says shoppers who tried the fitting technology at 3DME@LB at LaneBryant.com and then received a store coupon generated 233% more sales in-store than users of other online coupons and a 66% higher average ticket.
With My Virtual Model at LaneBryant.com, shoppers can fit more than 3,000 outfits online. Customers who create a model receive a 10% off coupon. LaneBryant.com is not an e-commerce site, but rather a shopping site that drives traffic to the company’s 650 stores.
A web agent
The future possibilities for My Virtual Model are endless, Guay believes. “We can add intelligence to the model, maybe even speech recognition,” she says. Further, the model could become a shopping agent. “It could represent you, keep your interests in mind,” she says. “It could gather information and prepare it in advance for you.” Such a model possibly would reside at a portal and view sites seeking beauty, entertainment or other information. Further, it could hold health statistics or security information about its owner, thus becoming a true virtual representation of the person on the web.
Consumers also are starting to look at My Virtual Model as a utility, Shtern says. “Users tell us they are looking for more places to use the model,” he says. “It’s like a Visa card. They wonder why they can’t just use it everywhere.”
The future of My Virtual Model, to a large extent, is in the hands of the consumers who use it to create themselves online. Ands Guay believes that My Virtual Model has usability beyond simply a clothes-fitting device. “A very important component of My Virtual Model is the user,” Guay says. “The users create models of themselves and then play a high-tech game of dress-up. In doing so, they discover themselves, who they are.”
Once they’ve done that, Guay sees the model as a way for people to express themselves on the web. The model could represent different aspects of the owner depending on where it is being used, presenting one image when in a chat room and another when dealing with an organization. In fact, that notion ties back to Guay’s interest in acting. “Like an actor, it could have multiple personalities,” she says.
Even several generations from today’s models that show shoppers how certain clothes fit at LandsEnd.com or LaneBryant.com, that’s a real load to be placing on the shoulders of fitting-room technology.
kurt@verticalwebmedia.com
