Creating tactile product experiences online using 360° spin technology
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ENHANCING CUSTOMER
CONVERSIONS
WITH
360 Degree Turntable Photography
Consumers are inundated with purchase choices, online and offline. Ecommerce marketers and photographers need to employ the best tools and technologies at their disposal to hold the attention of their consumers and offer them engaging product experiences. A number of rich media solutions are available that create compelling visual content which deepen engagement, enable product discovery, and boost conversion.
One of the most effective solutions is interactive 360 degree spin (360° spin) created with automated photographic turntable solutions. The use of 360° spin trumps other solutions like online video demonstrations by offering highly interactive and detailed product presentations that put the consumer in control. All of this can be accomplished with efficient workflow and only marginal cost increases that are more than offset by increased sales. Many product cat-egories, especially those that require a high level of “touch” can experience increases in sales upwards of 25% using 360° spin.
In this paper, we outline various rich media technologies for showcasing products online, describe why 360° spin provides the best consumer experience, and introduce the FOBA Turna as a superior and cost effective solution.
Ecommerce managers often find there is only so much that can be done to optimize the layout of their web stores. Whether the consumer demands pages that are heavy with technical data, highly graphical, or clean and simple, there is only so much that can be optimized through page design. However, the use of rich media to display the prod-ucts themselves can have the most significant impact on how well a site converts shoppers into buyers.
Ecommerce photographers as well are under pressure to gain expertise in all the tools at their disposal to offer inventive and compelling product experiences. Photographers therefore must invest in technologies and tools that enable the creation of meaningful customer interactions.
Forrester Research’s US Interactive Marketing Forecast estimates that interactive marketing will reach $55 billion dollars by 2014, or 21 percent of all marketing expenditures (VanBoskirk). As marketers increasingly compete for the same online customers, site owners and photographers need to continually up their game and aggressively opti-mize site experiences in order to effectively convert the customers who visit.
Introduction
The Challenge for Merchandisers and Photographers
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There are a variety of methods for presenting product visuals on ecommerce pages. A few popular options are laid out below.
Static Images:
Static images are the most basic form of visual presentation and still the most widely used. The equivalent of a print ad in a magazine, they are also the most non-interactive way to show products.Pros:
1. Easy to develop
2. Displays consistently across different platforms
Cons:
1. Images are flat and two dimensional
2. Only one view of a product can be shown at a time 3. No interactivity
Multi Image with Thumbnails and Zoom:
Allows for multiple pictures of the same product as well as a “zoom” that provides close-up detail. Thumbnails help users select from multiple images in order to see alternate angles or compare products.Pros:
1. More dynamic than static single images 2. Higher level of customer interactivity
3. Multiple views and products variations are available
Cons:
1. Images remain flat and two dimensional
2. Products are photographed from inconsistent angles making it hard to compare different products side by side
Product Tour Video Clips:
This is an increasingly popular type of product presentation using actors, live demonstrations, and video pro-duction equipment. Products are demonstrated or modeled by actors.Pros:
1. Provides a multi-media experience for the consumer, including audio 2. Shows the uses of a product in “real-time,” giving a sense of scale and the
ability to show many views and product variations 3. Marketers can measure view rates and time viewed
4. Video links are easily shared via email or social media platforms
Cons:
1. Costly because videos require an actor, and must be scripted, produced and edited
2. Requires wait time for loading
3. Lower level of image quality than still images or spin animations
4. Interactivity is limited; the consumer cannot request specific views or prod-uct details
Rich Media Solutions
“When consumers see
enhanced marketing
from brands, such as
videos, product tours,
360-degree views and
user manuals, sales
increase for both the
brand and the retailer by
6 to 25%.”
- Jed Alpert, vice president at content syndicator WebCollage in an interview by Internet Retailer in April, 2009 (Demery).
Source: Dynamic Logic MarketNorms
360 Degree Spin (aka 360° Spin):
360° Spin provides a highly interactive experience that is entirely driven by the consumer. The user has the ability to spin products to view multiple angles, controlling the speed of rotation as well as the zoom. 360° Spin is created by photographing a product from many angles using a turntable.Pros:
1. Complete user control - consumers browse the product on their own terms, deciding which angles they want to see and for how long
2. Same zoom capabilities and resolution as still images, but from many different angles
3. Highly interactive; provides users with tactile and immersive shop-ping experiences which get them as close to “touching” the product as possible
4. Marketers can measure how long viewers spend with a product, and what views of the product are most popular
5. Increased brand association – rich interactive experiences enhance the ability of a consumer to link a specific brand to a specific mes-sage by 23 percent from traditional gif/jpeg ads (Source: Dynamic Logic)
6. More cost effective than video, and can yield conversion rates higher
than that of still or other types or rich media solutions
Cons:
1. Slightly longer production time per image – 2 to 3 minutes when using FOBA Turna (longer for other turn-tables)
2. Large file sizes - File sizes depend on implementation choices such as zoom levels and zoom resolution aswell as number of images in the animation. We recommend 16 to 32 images per spin animation to keep file sizes from becoming a burden on smaller servers.
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Consumers clearly see value in 360° Spin. Adobe found in their “Viewer Study: What Shoppers Want” that 91% of medium to heavy online shoppers rank “ability to turn products around in a full 360 degree spin and zoom in on any perspective” as something they desired. This compares to 55% of people who chose “product videos” and 58% who chose “access to predetermined zoom areas on images” (Adobe Scene 7).
Case studies from e-retailers who have implemented 360° Spin universally point to significant increases in sales and conversion rates. Here are some examples:
• The golf retailer Golfsmith.com used 360 degree technology to display top-selling products in their web store, and has seen an increase in conversion rates of about 10-40 percent (Consorte).
• Clothing retailer Land’s End added 3D models to its online catalog in early 2000; by September of 2002, the company reported an estimated
sales increase of 26 percent (Gill).
• 3D product models have in-creased sales by 35 percent for Nook, a linear motion component manufacturer (Nook Increases).
• Gerrard Dennis of The Sim-ply Group, a company comprised of 7 different web stores rang-ing from hikrang-ing gear to swimwear, found that the addition of 360 degree animation in product pages has led to a 20% increase in conversion rates for those pages, and a significant re-duction in return rates (Charlton).
The Impact of Using 360 Degree Spin
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360 degree spin is the closest thing to touching a product
People create a better attachment to certain products that they are able to physically touch. According to researcher Robert Cialdini, author of Influence, we assess the scarcity and value of certain products by “touch[ing] it or hear[ing] it… or other-wise us[ing] it” (268). When consumers establish this physical connection, they tend to want to keep it in their possession. Joann Peck and Suzanne B. Shu composed a study that assessed whether people give more value to certain products that they have touched, whether positive or negative. They stated: “For most products, the touch experience is positive or neutral so merely touching a product usually increases how much a person is willing to pay for an object.”
What this means for internet marketers is that the new realm of 360 degree spin photography allows users to imagine them-selves with a product. With the implementation of rich media, the e-marketer can create a physical web store in which the items are able to be turned, zoomed for detail, and “touched, “creating the same sensory experience as physical touch.
Defining the Solution: FOBA Turna
In response to the need for an efficient 360° image capturing process that also optimizes workflow, FOBA - a com-pany that manufactures professional tripod
heads and mounting accessories - has created a complete turntable photography system called the FOBA Turna.
Created as a turnkey solution to help make better quality 360 degree animations while minimizing shoot time and keeping costs in line, its software fully automates the cap-ture and output generation process creating web-ready 360° spin animations in as little as 120 seconds.
The FOBA Turna is both functional and flexible because of its modularity. It comes adaptable as both ceiling and floor-mount-ed, making it useful for both free standing and suspended objects. Other turntable solutions do not have the ability or the ac-cessories to allow hanging objects from the ceiling. This unique feature has a huge advantage because hanging from monofila-ment line requires little or zero retouch-ing. In the field of 360° spin visualization, where the diversity of the objects hardly has any limit, FOBA’s flexibility clearly stands out. The range of accessories reflects cost efficiency and ease of use. They include: the TURAS, to support a shoe, the TURAT, to support a watch or wristband, and the TURAC, a support for objects such as neck-laces.
The Turna is made for precision, flexibility and automation. An elevated platform for placing the product allows for better light-ing and a more comfortable way of worklight-ing. The high-precision geared motor allows for smooth rotation, and the encoder and high gear reduction provide extreme angular ac-curacy. Frosted acrylic plates (TURTE) allow backlighting from below with a ring flash; allows shooting on white background and therefore an optimized workflow without post-editing.
Additionally, e-commerce photographers
Introducing the FOBA Turna
Turna specifications:
• Rotating speed: 0 to max. 1.5 rpm
• Diameter of the standard plate: 30 cm (11.8”)
• Photograph rate: 2 to 360 images per revolution
• Resilience: max. load TURAA, 200 kg (440 lbs) Key features of the Turna
• Fully automated workflow
• Able to be connected to any professional camera
• Software now available for both Mac OS 10.6 (or higher) or Windows XP/7
• High precision geared motors and 3 adjustable wheels with individual brakes allow for smooth, continuous rotation
• 360 shots per turn
• Frosted acrylic plates (TURTE) allow backlighting from below with a ring flash; allows shooting on white background and therefore an optimized workflow without post-editing
• Rotation can be executed in 2 modes: customized stop and continuous
• T-Ctrl – This software allows you to define, control and edit your workflow. You can correct individual frames by setting a reference point. You can adjust number of captions, zoom, rotating direction, speed, break and acceleration ramps
• T-Make – This software creates Flash or HTML animation. There is a folder structure that allows for easy uploading and seamless functionality. You can create animations with the click of a mouse
• No Flash or HTML skills necessary
• F-settings allow a number of positions to be chosen, labeled with a job description and stored
• Customizable Templates available
• No expensive post-editing, thanks to optimal lighting and ac-cessories
• Output – HTML5 or Flash
• Small data size while keeping a better quality thanks to high resolution initial data and through special compression
• Amazing range of product positioning accessories for jewelry, watches, large hanging objects (such as bicycles), large plat-form items (such as motorcycles), plexiglass for underlight-ing, and TURSA extension for shadeless lighting
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will enjoy the Turna’s customizable workflow with features such as T-Ctrl software to edit individual frames, number of captions and rotation, and T-Make to easily create Flash or HTML 5 animations.
T-Ctrl’s user-friendly interface makes it easy to function. It features a graphic display, fully automatic recording, correction and reshooting of frames with setting of a reference point, and a shooting rate of up to 360 shots per turn. The FOBA Turna is so accurate in its rotation that a photographer can go back and reshoot an individual shot in the case that the strobe misfires or if additional product features are to be displayed. This makes repeatability an easy process. Rotation can be controlled in 2 different modes: customized stop mode or continuous mode. Everything from custom shot positions to product UPC code scanning and encoding is fully integrated into the solution.
Quick, easy and cost-efficient, the T-Make software does not require one to have prior Flash or HTML skills. Tem-plates are available and customizable by design and function. Further pictures showing additional functions of the object can be integrated into the 360° spin visualization within seconds. One can select number of frames, size, zoom and output.
The entire solution is designed to optimize the workflow of a high production photography studio. In a well run studio, the process becomes so easy that it consists of: position item, enter your settings and press go; while T-make processes the file in the background, you can move on to your next shot.
The FOBA Turna In-Use
Yokohama Tire Corporation, a U.S. tire manufacturer and marketer, and with the help of Kovel/Fuller Advertising, created an iPad application that will feature 360 degree animation made with the FOBA Turna. The “Yokohama Tire
With the FOBA Turna, you can create iPad applications such as the one above. Picture courtesy of Kovel/Fuller advertising.
Explorer” iPad application, released in February 2011, features an interactive display of tires including a touch fea-ture to zoom and view product information. The application recently won a Silver Addy award in the mobile marketing category as well as a Creativity International Award in the category of Apps-business.
Jim Reilly, the Senior Vice President of Kovel/Fuller and the Account Director for the Yokohama iPad project states that the 360 degree animation produced by the FOBA Turna is the start of an influential consumer-web relationship: “We believe it is our responsibility to provide our clients with the tools that fulfill the basic needs of today's consum-erism…Technologies that involve consumers in product interaction engage them with the brand sparking dialog or further investigation. Consumers who tend to reject online purchases often say the reason is they want to be able to touch, and fully inspect products before they buy. While today's technology does not allow these individuals to actu-ally touch and feel the product as they could in a brick and mortar environment, we can give them the opportunity to inspect items from every angle, giving them a sense of weight, dimension and quality.”
Further, without the Turna and turntable technology it is virtually impossible to maintain image consistency. With the Turna, a photographer saves time by not having to reshoot and process the images as well as refit accessories for each shot. Creating cohesion from shot to shot allows a better experience for the consumer. And Reilly states, “The better the experience, the more likely our clients are to generate a positive opinion or preference for their brand moving the target audience ever closer to the purchase end of the cycle.”
With the FOBA Turna, you can create iPad applications such as the one above. Picture courtesy of Kovel/Fuller advertising.
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Summary
The development of rich media platforms has helped e-marketers create interesting and innovative web stores that capture and hold consumers’ attention. 360 degree technology in particular offers the most benefits to consumers, translating to higher conversion rates, lower return rates, and happier customers. Compared to other rich media, the FOBA Turna and turntable technology is significantly more cost efficient in terms of limiting expensive post-editing time, reshoots, processing time, and creating higher value animations that will have a large impact on product sales. The FOBA Turna is an optimal solution that allows photographers to efficiently capture 360 degree photographs that are consistent across multiple shots. The high consistency of views and real time rotation that is controlled by the user allows consumers to virtually touch the product, dramatically increasing conversion rate and providing an enhanced brand experience.
About Bron Imaging Group
Bron Imaging Group is a marketer of photographic solutions and technologies for commercial photography. The com-pany delivers only the highest quality solutions from individual products to complete studio buildouts and workflow implementations. For more information visit www.bronimaging.com.
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