Oddcast Beats the Odds
There's a great movie line toward the end of Stand by Me. After sharing a life-changing experience with a small group of friends as a boy, the film's narrator looks back as an adult and sadly realizes "Friends come in and out of our lives like busboys in a restaurant." The same can be said for digital marketing technology companies. Which is why Oddcast is so amazing. They're still here.
In relative web terms Oddcast is ancient. Heck, they've been around since 1999. But every time they start to show signs of aging, they do a simple click and tuck and voila – good as new. These are the same folks who have brought you everything from Careerbuilder's monk-e-mail to last holiday's Santa Swing for Everyclick. And lots of talking avatars in between.
Recently I received yet another viral Oddcast creation in my email. This time it was a promotion for Tide-to-Go Instant Stain Remover. And of course I clicked. What I found was a delightful, integrated execution that tied (pun intended) beautifully to the current Tide talking stain TV spots. The site lets you upload your own photo so that you appear in the ad as the talking stain. Very clever. Very simple. Very viral.
So I got to thinking. What is it that keeps attracting me and millions of others to these talking avatars?
The answer is just a few sentences back. It's simple. But of course it's more than that. Jason Bedell in a recent blog has a theory that builds on simplicity. He's added two more "s" words: socialable and shareable. By socialiable he means making the experience something that can be personalized then shared. Makes sense to me.
Oddcast has done something else along the way. They've taken one simple idea and diversified their product offering. What started out as a pretty cool but goofy time waster on the web has turned into a virtual industry. Now they've got three different platforms aimed at three different segments.
Oddcast delivers avatars for enterprise level businesses. Sitepal make it easy for smaller business to add avatars to their sites to enhance customer service and sales. And Voki is designed for consumers who want to create avatars and share them with friends. And because these products are Web-based they can be delivered to any device including browsers, mobile devices, Radio and TV.
To be honest, as much as I like Oddcast (and I do), I thought the fascination with talking avatars would have peaked long ago. But I underestimated the power of the "three s's."
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to create an avatar of myself to help finish a few writing deadlines.
