Cartoons used to be thought of as the future of help services on the Internet. Rather than submit ourselves to seeking online help from soulless Web sites where you typed in your problem to be answered with some disembodied text from a nameless operative who could be in Aberdeen or Bangalore, we would all be cheered by little animated images of characters who would troubleshoot us through our difficulties with a cheeky cartoon grin.
These cartoon characters, known as avatars, somehow never managed to populate the Internet in the way that pundits predicted several years ago. Online help continues, in the main, to be a text-based and anonymous service, and if you want some human interaction you have to use a phone.
However, new generations of avatar technology are making headway, and the technology is now colonising not just Web sites but desktops, e-learning centres and mobile phones.
Wary of strangers
There are, though, potentially serious problems with downloading avatars onto corporate desktops in today's ever more security-conscious atmosphere. For example, corporate IT policies prevented NMA from downloading the avatar of the Howard character who fronts ad campaigns for the Halifax bank. Companies are increasingly choosing to prevent their employees from downloading executable files from the Internet, which may threaten the future of avatars designed to live on work desktops unless they can reach an agreement with corporate IT managers, by allowing, for example, the avatar technology to run remotely over the Web so there's less to be downloaded to a local machine.
Another question is why serious brands like the Halifax are interested in avatars. The answer is that they manage to combine a fun element with a serious branding intent.
"Avatars hit the right note between commerciality and fun," says Darrell Mott, new media manager at Arsenal, which runs an Arsene Wenger desktop avatar created by avatar specialist Skinkers.
Visa uses avatars as "desktop ambassadors", while travel Web site Latedeals.com has an avatar called Holly Day who pops up to tell users about new offers based on a profile of the kind of holiday they want.
Other financial services companies are also dabbling in avatars, seeing the virtual characters as a way of guiding customers through information about complex products. Newcastle Building Society, for example, offers visitors to its Web site a virtual assistant in the form of Avril, created using Veepers technology from Pulse 3D in the US.
She answers customers' questions on the Society's offset mortgage account. Robert Hollinshead, the Society's chief executive, takes a personal interest in Avril. "We're looking at ways to extend the service to other products," he says.
The Goonhilly Earth Station in Cornwall uses Veepers technology on its Web site to offer visitors the chance to create their own avatar, based on a 2D image of themselves. This virtual image then reads aloud information about the tourist attraction.
The Scottish Assembly takes a similar approach with the junior section of its site, attempting to draw in children by using an avatar called Seonaid (above), created by Digital Animations Group.
Not all avatars make it, though. First Direct used an avatar called Cara to guide customers through its mortgage application procedures, but has shelved her. A spokeswoman for the bank said, "We decided to take her off the site. We had good feedback when she was up there, but we've decided to find other ways to give people information on our services."
Avatars can also be used to gather information. There's hard evidence that avatars on a site can improve its impact on consumers, and can encourage people to give information about themselves that can be used for marketing.
For example, a study from Stanford University that examined the use of avatars on Dell's site found that users who interacted with them were twice as likely to buy online and three times more likely to give personal information than those who didn't.
Professor Byron Reeves of Stanford, who was involved with the research, explains the success of avatars. "Computer users expect online experiences to have a social element, even if they're interacting with a non-human entity," he says. "The more human the interface, the higher the expectation of true social interaction, and the more receptive the user is likely to be to the experience."
MTV found this to be true when it used avatars last year to promote The Osbournes, with a desktop Ozzy character, also created by Skinkers. "It communicates with people in a fun way that has high permissive credentials," explains Matthew Kershaw, MTV's head of interactive. Once a trusted dialogue has opened up with people, they're more willing to divulge personal information that can be used in future campaigns.
The technology can bring concrete results. Online campaigns featuring avatars for V Graham Norton and Celebrity Big Brother, again created by Skinkers, generated click-through rates of 30%--an enviable record.
Teaching ability
A potentially much more lucrative future for avatars comes from their internal use by companies keen to encourage staff to take part in e-learning programmes, which work out cheaper for them to provide than face-to-face training. Pulse 3D has been very active in this market. Its research suggests that when avatars are used for e-learning content, use of the online courses increases by 400%.
Another strongly tipped future for avatars is on the screens of mobile phones. Anthropics, a small venture capital-funded British company spun out of the National Film and Television School, has created animation software that has brought a talking hamster to Trouble TV, and plans to extend it to mobiles. Prototypes show animated animals like kittens that can be displayed on mobile phone screens. When an incoming call comes through, the kitten appears on screen and talks with the caller's voice. The company is in discussions with major mobile phone manufacturers to build the technology into handsets.
It has also fastened on football fans as a target. "You could have Thierry Henry for Arsenal fans," suggests Andrew Berend, Anthropics' chief executive. It's difficult to tell why, but it seems the team has the lead in the cartoon market as well as the premiership--if you have an avatar ambition, you should be gunning for the Gunners.
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