As the old saying goes, A picture can say a thousand words. According to Alex Willcock, founder of Imagini Holdings Ltd., an online consumer research and technology development firm, a picture can do much more than that: It can tell an e-retailer exactly what a customer wants in terms of products and web experience.
In the grand scheme of things it’s very difficult to determine what consumers like based on traditional web analytics data, says Willcock. “Conventional analytics basically just tell you the areas people visited on the site,” he contends. “They don’t tell you a person’s style.”
So Willcock has started a firm, based in London, designed to help individuals and retailers find this sense of style and consumer desires via testing with images not words. Microsoft Corp.’s MSN network, for example, is using Imagini’s Visual DNA technology to better understand network users and their motivations for being there and implement findings in an attempt to ensure the right users are getting the right message in ads and content.
The system typically shows consumers 10 statements requiring the individual to answer by selecting one image among 15 that best represents their feelings. Words are not included in any answers.
“The pattern of the responses an individual makes enables an organization to make really strong customer segments, and you can start dividing the crowd up according to their preferences,” Willcock says. “Responses to images offer a much greater understanding of individuals’ key motivations. For example, e-retailers can say, ‘Ah, this person and this group of like-minded persons are motivated by contemporary home style or mucking about with their car.”
Consumers live in a very visual world, and if a merchant can understand how people truly feel about things, Willcock says, it can communicate with them in a very deep and meaningful way.
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