We’ve partnered with Oddcast to bring another amazing photo technology to life. Photo-to-Speech Animation morphs still images into moving characters… and then lets you make them say whatever you want. The latest press release is just below.
Picture Marketing Partners with Oddcast to Delight Event Attendees with Photo-to-Speech™ Avatar
Novato, CA, October 4, 2010 – Picture Marketing, Inc., a developer of experiential marketing applications and tools, has chosen Oddcast as a technology partner to help deliver Photo-to-Speech™ animation, effectively allowing people attending events to easily create an avatar of themselves. Event marketers and sponsorships now have a cost-effective tool to enable event marketing to become viral, vastly extending its reach and lowering per unit cost.
Brands participating in a photo activation – any event at which a sponsor invites individuals to have their photos taken, and allows the individuals to retrieve their photos online at a Microsite – can integrate the Photo-to-Speech™ application into the Microsite activities. The technology animates a still image into a moving, speaking character. The photo can be morphed to include a wide range of emotions, expressions, or caricature features. Users add speech by entering text, speaking into their computer’s microphone, calling in by phone, or selecting from a bucket of pre-recorded phrases a brand has included.
Photo-to-Speech™ animation has been the lynchpin of some astounding social media efforts over the past year. The 2009 “Trek Yourself” widget, for example, which allowed fans to turn themselves into a character from the new Star Trek film in theaters that summer, received over 650,000 interactions during the first five weeks it was live. Of those who used the application, 51% (333,000) came to it through a viral source, whether it was an email, a posted creation, or a grabbed and shared message URL. And more than 98,000 users shared their creations with friends by posting to their blog or social profile, emailing, or passing along a unique URL linking to their creation.
Oddcast’s Adi Sideman said: “Our products represent an incredible new theater for social engagement. We’re built to go viral. Partnering with a platform like Picture Marketing allows us to match the creative scope of Oddcast with the lead generation potential of a photo activation powerhouse.”
Picture Marketing, Inc. is proud to offer an application with such social media firepower. The company’s Director of Inbound Marketing, Samantha Rose, added, “It’s more important than ever for brands to find creative ways to make their social media campaigns pop. Bringing a highly personal photo to the next level by allowing it to move and speak… that’s the type of amplification agencies are looking for when they’re imagining a strong solution.”
Beyond the high level of engagement offered by a photo activation effort, incorporating fun activities like Photo-to-Speech™ into the photo pickup page keeps viewers interested and elevates viral sharing. “It significantly moves the dial for social metrics, lead generation, and word of mouth,” said Rose.
With advanced tools like the Ricoh Fotozap® Camera at the forefront of Picture Marketing’s arsenal, its popular creative technologies – Photo-to-Speech™ animation among them – can integrate with any experiential marketing program to bring the consumer experience to a high point.
