We zapped television ads, so we got billboards back. We learned to ignore billboards, so they gave us telemarketing. We slammed down the telephone, so we got pop-up ads on our computer screens, until we learned how to block them. Advertisers have almost despaired of finding new ways to grab out attention, but EyeClick Ltd. wants to restore their hopes.
On the face of it, EyeClick’s product seems to be friendly for both advertisers and consumers. The company projects light beams onto a platform, and when a person steps on it, the technology senses the movement and a picture responds accordingly. “We basically know how to take a computer’s multimedia content and display it in an open space, on the street, at an airport, or at a train station,” says EyeClick founder and CEO Ariel Almos.
“We have three main types of solutions, to which we add innovations. The first type is products that react to motion, like huge corn kernels that explode when stepped on, or a picture of a piano that can be played with the feet. The second type is solutions for stores, such as a computerized product catalogue in a display window, on which the different items react to touch to display additional information, in the same way as a computer. The third type includes fast-moving interactive games, which are mainly designed for sales promotions when the target audience only has time to interact with the product by way of entertainment.”
The most advanced versions of the technology can be used to play virtual football with a non-existent ball on a field of light. A game like this requires the system to analyze every detail of a player’s movement and understand whether the object approaching the “ball” is the player’s foot, hand, or knee, and from what angle. The system then has to respond in real time to that movement. It’s complicated.
How does this work? “EyeClick has developed a very sophisticated motion detection system,” says Almos. “The location from which light beams are emitted has a sensor taking a video picture of the platform. The sensor identifies movement on the picture displayed, and derives from it exactly what the person standing on it, or in front of it, is about to do.
“Our patent is on the software’s ability to identify movement, and distinguish between images and background; in other words, between the movement of a person and the movement of the picture itself, which always moves in tandem with the person. The system works in conditions of poor visibility, stormy weather, or variable lighting. We can also supplement missing details. In football, for example, we can predict what a player momentarily hidden behind another player is doing, from the way he was moving when he was still visible.”
Breaking into Europe’s markets
EyeClick started out as Almos’s final project at the Camera Obscura School of Art in Tel Aviv. He entered the media industry after acquiring a thorough technical education at the IDF training program for software programmers (MAMRAM), Unit 8-200 (the IDF signal intelligence gathering unit), Comverse Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: CMVT) and Quiver Ltd. (sold to Verity Inc.), where he specialized in the computerized processing of pictures. But his heart roamed to more artistic realms, and he chose a degree course in industrial design at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem and further studies in interactive media at Camera Obscura. Today, he lectures at Bezalel and at the Shenkar School of Engineering and Design.
Almos quickly realized the commercial potential of his product. After developing his product on his own for two years, he founded EyeClick with an investment of a few hundred thousand dollars from private investors in 2004. EyeClick currently has ten employees. EyeClick director of marketing Tal Sela previously served as VP business development at KetaKeta, which deals in virtual marketing, and as an accounts manager at McCann-Erickson, Young and Rubicam, and Grey Global Group in New York.
EyeClick R&D manager Shachar Weis previously served as a senior development team leader at Mercury Interactive Corporation (Pink Sheets:MERQ). He is a MAMRAM veteran and has a second degree in computer science from the Weizmann Institute of Science.
EyeClick finances its activities from revenue, which totaled $1 million in 2005. The company has already handled campaigns for leading Israeli clients, including Central Bottling Co. (Coca-Cola Israel) (for Sprite), Strauss-Elite Ltd. (TASE:STEL) (for its Milky dairy treat), Microsoft Israel, Bank Hapoalim (LSE:BKHD; TASE:POLI), Osem Investments Ltd. (TASE:OSEM) and the local Volvo and Hyundai agencies.
Although EyeClick mostly markets in Israel, the company has begun breaking into Europe, especially Germany, where the advertising market is sizzling ahead of the 2006 World Cup. The company has also begun offering its products and skills for community services. It has created games for developing the motor skills of handicapped children, which are already used by MILBAT - The Israel Center for Technology and Accessibility.
Media Ticket, an advertising franchisee at malls, represents EyeClick in Israel. Media Ticket offers its clients ad campaigns using EyeClick’s medium at malls where it has franchises. It creates complete campaigns; not merely one-time breaks. The current cost of such a campaign (while the technology is penetrating the market) is $35,000-40,000 for a two-week presentation at five malls.
“The price is more or the less the same as for a billboard ad campaign that reaches the same number of people,” says Media Ticket CEO Avi Ben-Zikri. “This medium usually isn’t the main medium, but a supplementary one that reaches each person individually and makes him or her part of the experience seen in the company’s television clip. A billboard campaign that causes someone to stand in front of it of their own accord for more than four seconds has not yet been born. People stopped at our Milky campaign for 24 seconds.”
“Globes”: Are other companies around the world offering similar technology?
Almos: “Some foreign companies are trying to achieve similar results, but with other technologies. They are all new companies in the field, and we feel we’re well positioned to be the market leader. Our separation between picture and background is better and our solution is cheaper. We have no problem with competition. The establishment of many companies actually educates the market in the use of our product.”
Who do you work with when creating an ad campaign? Is it the creative team responsible for content, the team that designs the media mix, the events and interactive ad production company, or the client?
Ben-Zikri: “We believe in working with all the parties. We’re now working directly with clients, because ad agencies don’t know the medium well enough. An ad agency has a lot of clients, and the agency doesn’t necessarily know how to connect the client with the most suitable application. We therefore prefer contacting clients directly. We nevertheless have very strong alliances with ad agencies.”
Do you train ad agencies’ creative teams in your technology, or do they send you ideas that you then develop?
“We intend to play an active role in developing a unique application, including content, on the basis of our experience.”
Don’t creative teams get angry that you’re taking over part of their job, and even establishing direct ties with clients, which is not always accepted in the advertising world?
Ben-Zikri: “We want to build partnerships with ad agencies. We have a new product, which we’re introducing to all relevant parties, in order to penetrate the market. We assume that our later relations will be similar to those of other media with ad agencies.”
A new advertising medium always draws a lot of attention. The question is whether, in future, passers-by won’t see the light from afar and say, ‘I know this. It’s an ad, let’s skip it.’
Almos: “The idea is to adapt the campaign to the location. In places where people are in a hurry, it will be possible to present pleasing campaigns that don’t delay people. More interesting campaigns, which require more interaction, can be in places where people wait. The real goal, however, is to produce campaigns that are so cool and exciting that when someone sees the light, they won’t run away like they do from an ordinary ad, but run towards it, and say, ‘It’s EyeClick, let’s go see what they’re doing this time’.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on February 15, 2006