Alex Willcock's start-up Imagini could provide the key to a personalised, relevant Web for all
If you think the Web is big now, try to imagine it ten times the size—that's how much information market research firm IDC reckons will be online by 2011. Much of that data will doubtless be of use to somebody, but trying to keep track of not only a greater number of sites, but also the reams of content they produce, will become increasingly difficult. Cheaper bandwidth, plus a proliferation of easy to use publishing tools have led to information overload.
But there is a way to make online information more palatable. Entrepreneur Alex Willcock is the brains behind Imagini, a UK start-up that supplies "visual DNA" software that can measure the emotions of online customers. Understanding the mood of a visitor allows a website to use software that automatically serves personalised, relevant information. "Understanding somebody's core motivation allows companies to filter content according to who that person is," explains Willcock.
The company, which launched in 2006, has just completed its second round of funding, raising £9.3m from Horizon Ventures, NorthZone and Atomico. Investors are buying into a company with huge potential. "The point is that visual DNA becomes your keys to a filtered internet—the key to a world of relevance," says Willcock. "The user will own their own DNA: your digital experience [will be] filtered according to who you are."
How is it done? Users respond to a series of quick-fire questions by clicking on a particular image. So, the question: "what do you do in your spare time?" would be answered after contemplating several pictures, each featuring a different activity—a busy pub, a football match, or a library, for example. Questions are asked until an accurate personality profile can be built.
Imagini's software works because people are often more responsive to images than they are to words. Our choices tend to reveal quite a lot about us, even from a short test, says Willcock. "It's a science that's evolving." Travel website Hotels.com uses Imagini's visual DNA engine to help customers narrow down their search options. Click on the site's "Hotel Visualiser" and a screen pops up asking you to pick six different images that correspond to mood and motivation. "If somebody is looking for a beach holiday we can understand why they are looking for that type of holiday," explains Willcock. "A total escape because they are stressed, time to spend with the family? Knowing their visual DNA allows a sense of the context of the holiday they are searching for."
Willcock hit on the idea for Imagini following a spell at the Terence Conran group, where he had to "intuitively sense" what the market wanted. "As a buying director for 3,000 different products a year you're having to read the market and understand what's going on." He left to run his own marketing agency where clients would routinely dump a foot-high pile of market research on his desk. "It was bizarre to me," he recalls.
His frustration with market research led to an idea. What if consumers were able to categorise themselves? Willcock sold his company and his house to fund his vision. "I saw in my head, in a flash, that through the web there was another dimension of understanding that we could capture: people's feelings."
Willcock says that for those customers that decide to take the test there is a 37 per cent increase in average transactional value. It's a win-win situation, he says. The user is incentivised to take the visual DNA test by the promise of a more relevant experience, while the client gets to use reliable personality data to enable targeted, segmented selling. "People love doing this," he says. "We see the benefits for commerce as being a nice by-product of what we do."
Do users really love giving away their personal information? Yes, according to home improvement website mydeco.com, another of Imagini's customers. "Our users have really engaged with the test and have been overwhelmingly complimentary about how accurate the profile is," says Annabel Kilner, mydeco's business development manager. "We're huge fans of Imagini."
The data may be personal, adds Willcock, but it's also totally anonymous. Willcock is well aware of the software's appeal, too, having already used it as the backbone to another of his sites, the social networking start-up youniverse.com. "Within the first six months, five million people had taken the test," he says. Social networking suits the visual DNA model well because it allows like-minded people who have never met to form relationships easily. "Not everybody is good at articulating themselves," he says. "This does a good job of navigating that first stage of interaction."
Posted 10 March 2009 : Director.co.uk
