Both Barrels Communications Ltd

Online retailers wary of the possibility of recession, or simply lacking the finance or other resources to expand abroad, are harnessing the advantages of advertising images over advertising words to market and sell their products globally.

PIXSTA’s Visual Search Engines and AdImage™ network enables a scale of exposure that previously would have been possible only with high upfront cost, public relations campaigns and a dedicated, country-specific team.

However, joining PIXSTA’s AdImage network provides online retailers with an economical, international expansion tool for marketing internationally with minimal change to business processes. Providing a retailer is set up to ship products abroad, there is no constraint to advertising on the sites of PIXSTA’s foreign media partners.

Among the UK retailers that use PIXSTA’s AdImage network to market and sell their products abroad are Funspex (sunglasses) [screenshot] and DeviDoll (a designer ethical fashion boutique) [screenshot].

Elsewhere, Stylebop (Germany) [screenshot] is using PIXSTA to expand into the UK, while Monshowroom (France) and Designer Exposure (USA) are also making progress in multiple foreign markets using the PIXSTA AdImage™ network.

Sindhu Venkatanarayanan, of ethical fashion retailer DeviDoll, said: “Pixsta’s AdImage network allows DeviDoll to attract the attention of global customers from an early stage. It’s proved to be a low-risk, low-cost way to increase brand awareness internationally.”

“Using PIXSTA AdImages, customers make purchases based on a product’s visual appearance, rather than on its description. Smart companies are incorporating this fundamental advantage into their global marketing solutions as a way to break into new markets intelligently. They understand that as long as they can ship there, we can put them there,” said Alexander Straub, PIXSTA’s CEO.

PIXSTA’s AdImages technology has already been integrated into the online shopping portals of many major media titles. The list of media brands currently hosting PIXSTA AdImages™ are:

• UK: Cosmopolitan, Telegraph, The Independent, Handbag, News International’s Fabulous, and Shiny Media’s Shoewawa and TheBagLady.
• Germany: Gala, InTouch, WomenWeb, Agenti.de, RTL2.de
• France: Gala, Femme Actuelle
• Greece: Glamour, Lucky, Myself
• USA: Shoetube, Shoewawa US, and TheBagLady US

PIXSTA’s AdImage network works by presenting a selection of images – advertising images – which can then be browsed at will by the website user. Clicking on a product image returns a new selection of items that are similar by shape, colour or texture. When the user sees a product they want to buy, he/she clicks on the adjacent ‘shop’ icon and is taken to the appropriate product landing page for that item.

Crucially, the retailer only incurs a click-through cost at this final stage. The click through to the product landing page is highly targeted, significantly reducing the risk of losing the customer during the ‘click journey’.

Pixsta now operates its AdImage network across five countries – UK, France, Germany, Greece and the USA. Showing 100% quarterly growth from Q1 to Q2, the company now has 19 major media partners and boasts 93 retailers selling 200,000 different products across 5,000 brands.

[ends]

Links and resources

• About PIXSTA/press office
• PIXSTA web site
• Flash video: “What problem does PIXSTA solve?”
• Other PIXSTA pictures
• The PIXSTA blog: The Portobello Spy

A growing number of international media brands have recognized the potential of advertising images presented as content to further monetise their websites.

Visual search and browse company PIXSTA has revealed that eight media brands have joined its content network since May, bringing the total to 19. PIXSTA’s media partners now span five territories: UK, Germany, France, Greece and the USA.

The list of media brands currently hosting PIXSTA AdImages™ are:

• UK: Cosmopolitan, Telegraph, The Independent, Handbag, News International’s Fabulous, and Shiny Media’s Shoewawa and TheBagLady
• Germany: Gala, InTouch, WomenWeb, Agenti.de, RTL2.de
• France: Gala, Femme Actuelle
• Greece: Glamour, Lucky, Myself
• USA: Shoetube, Shoewawa US, and TheBagLady US

Natalia Lorentziadi of Greek publisher Liberis – which publishes the three Greek titles Glamour, Lucky and Myself featuring PIXSTA – said: “PIXSTA is already the 4th most popular page on our websites, and its popularity rises month by month. In terms of monetisation, the PIXSTA page delivers an effective CPM rate of €56 across the Liberis Group, with some PIXSTA pages delivering €65. This makes PIXSTA one of the most promising elements of our web offering,” she added.

Alexander Straub, PIXSTA’s CEO, said: “PIXSTA enables media brands to monetise their sites by serving up advertising images that are presented to users as valuable content. It also provides an extra layer of interactivity, making sites more engaging and ‘sticky’.”

PIXSTA AdImages™ works by presenting a selection of images – PIXSTA AdImages™ – which can then be browsed at will by the website user. A simple click on a product image returns a new selection of items similar by shape, colour or texture. When the user finds a product they want to buy, he/she clicks on the adjacent ‘shop’ icon and is taken to the appropriate product landing page. The media brands that leverage PIXSTA’s AdImages™ Network deliver large, receptive and – in the case of specialised media such as Shoewawa (shoes) and TheBagLady (handbags/purses) – fully ‘product-specific’ audiences.

Karen Millen is just one of the 93 retailers that now use PIXSTA’s AdImages™ network. Emma Bott, e-commerce manager for the fashion company, said: “Pixsta offers an innovative and highly targeted means of reaching a new customer base. The concept of browsing for garments visually, rather than being dependent on keywords or descriptions defined by the retailer, is far closer to the in-store shopping experience. The shopper is able to view and compare a selection of products based on their own criteria at one glance, thus the quality of the click-through is greatly improved.”

[ends]

Links and resources

• PIXSTA web site
• Flash video: “What problem does PIXSTA solve?”
• Other PIXSTA pictures including screenshots
• The PIXSTA blog: The Portobello Spy

A growing number of retailers are turning to advertising images, rather than adwords, as they look for ways to increase the return on their pay-per-click marketing campaigns.

Visual search and browse company PIXSTA has revealed that 44 new fashion retailers have joined its AdImages™ network since its launch in May, bringing the total to 93.

Among the companies turning to PIXSTA are well-known brands Tommy Hilfiger, TM Lewin, Mexx and Karen Millen.

PIXSTA’s AdImages™ has already been integrated into the online shopping portals of many major media publishers. Media titles such as Cosmopolitan.co.uk and Fabulousmag.co.uk, immediately deliver highly qualified, receptive and – in the case of specialised media such as Shoewawa (shoes) and TheBagLady (handbags/purses) – fully ‘product-specific’ audiences.

On these media sites, PIXSTA AdImages™ works by presenting site visitors with a selection of images – PIXSTA AdImages – which can then be browsed by the online shopper. Full details, including brand, retailer and price are displayed for the shopper.

To browse, an online shopper simply clicks on a product image; this immediately returns a new selection of items similar by shape, colour or texture. When the shopper finds a product they want to buy, he/she clicks on the adjacent ‘shop’ icon and is immediately taken to the appropriate product landing page on the retailer’s site – just one step from checkout.

Crucially, the retailer only incurs a click-through cost at this stage. This means a very targeted click to their product landing page, virtually eliminating the risk of losing the customer during the click journey. All previous brand impressions, description and shop information are shown free-of-charge to the browsing shopper.

Emma Bott, e-commerce manager for Karen Millen, said: “Pixsta offers an innovative and highly targeted means of reaching a new customer base. The concept of browsing for garments visually, rather than being dependent on keywords or descriptions defined by the retailer, is far closer to the in-store shopping experience. The shopper is able to view and compare a selection of products based on their own criteria at one glance, thus the quality of the click-through is greatly improved.”

Alexander Straub, PIXSTA’s CEO, said: “Since we launched in May, retailers have been very quick to understand the benefits of the PIXSTA AdImages network. If they are wary of the forecasts for a downturn in the economy and are looking for improved return on their online marketing expenditure, then they are coming to the right place: they receive multiple brand impressions for free, and pay only when a customer is incredibly close to buying.”

[ends]

London, UK-based PIXSTA emerged today to offer a new challenge to Google’s dominance of search, in the form of the most sophisticated and accurate image search engine in the world. Based on cutting-edge academic research into contextual image retrieval techniques, PIXSTA enables image-to-image search – unlike the text-to-text or text-to-image capabilities of search engines currently in widespread use.

PIXSTA also revealed today that it has successfully monetised its patent-pending technology. To refine the platform and prove the business model, it has developed over the past 18 months a revenue-generating advertising network for the online fashion retail market. PIXSTA already has live deployments in place with media partners including Handbag.com, ElleUK and the News of The World’s Fabulous Magazine and advertising partners including Monsoon, Oasis and Dorothy Perkins.

Core facts

1. The advertising ecosystem is similar to Google’s adwords model, but based wholly on images rather than text.

2. From a random starting point, users click on an image of an item of clothing, shoes or jewellery to return further images of items that are similar by colour, shape or texture.

3. Clicking on any of the displayed items re-submits that item as the search term. When the user ‘discovers’ the item that they want to purchase, they click through not just to the retailer’s home page but directly to the product landing page to purchase their chosen item.

4. The near-universal applicability of the PIXSTA AdImage platform means it has the potential to radically redefine the entire online advertising model, wherever the product or service being advertised has a visual element:

   - For the advertiser, customer acquisition costs are lowered, with lead-to-customer success rates in excess of 6% already recorded. The value of a PIXSTA AdImage click is therefore considerably higher than an adword click.

   - For media brand owners, PIXSTA AdImages represents a new opportunity to monetise their site. In particular, PIXSTA delivers an advertising solution that is perceived as content rather than advertising, and enhances the editorial content through an engaging level of interaction with the visitor.

   - For the consumer, much of the risk in browsing – measured typically in wasted time – is eliminated, because they have already seen the item they want to buy along with its closest alternatives available elsewhere online. In addition, they can see all the products from various retailers presented in a homogeneous way, like in a shopping mall, with no need to visit numerous individual sites.

5. More partnerships, with both media brands and advertisers, are planned and can be set-up directly on PIXSTA’s website. Further online advertising networks for items such as shoes, mother and baby clothes, art, antiques and home furnishings will be launched in the future. Any such application requires only a feed into the PIXSTA AdImages database from an online retailer and deployment on a relevant ‘destination’ media owner’s site.

6. The contextual visual search technology employed is the result of five years of academic research by PIXSTA co-founder Dr Daniel Heesch. His research has resulted in sophisticated algorithms that enable any image to be compared with any other, to determine their similarity in terms of shape, colour, texture and more.

7. The PIXSTA AdImage platform is sufficiently sophisticated to enable its use in facial recognition applications, or could, equally, be used as a standalone image search engine.

Quotes

Alexander Straub, CEO and co-founder of PIXSTA [and of dot-com success Mondus back in 1999], said:

• “Being able to use an image as a search term means we have absolutely stolen a march on the likes of Google, whose image search still relies on text search terms. We have a real-world solution, which doesn’t require a huge leap in user understanding or a massive change in their behaviour. It’s working now and already generating revenue.”
• “When searching online consumers prefer to say “I’m looking for something like this”, rather than attempting to describe what ‘this’ actually looks like – not for nothing is a picture worth a thousand words. What we’re doing is making the phrase a reality, with benefits to retailers, publishers and users. Everybody wins.”

Nicole Bremner, director of online fashion retailer Brittique, said:

• “The PIXSTA promotion on [News of The World’s] Fabulousmag.com was ‘fabulous’ – we sold out of all but one pair of shoes in a few minutes and now have a waiting list, awaiting more stock. We’re looking forward to running similar promotions in the future.”

Lara Kelly, News International’s head of e-commerce, said:

• “Our PIXSTA deployment was the first time a publisher had tackled the difficult task of fully integrating and cross-referencing from magazine to e-commerce site. The final product is a fully interactive experience for readers and online users to enjoy, driving traffic and transactions.”

Links and resources

1. PIXSTA press office
2. PIXSTA web site
3. Flash video: “What problem does PIXSTA solve?”
4. Alternative picture: Alexander Straub, CEO
5. Other PIXSTA pictures including screenshots from Elle UK and Fabulous Magazine
   
6. Video: PIXSTA in use on the Elle UK site
7. The PIXSTA blog: The Portobello Spy