VdoLife project manager and co-founder Vahid Ghaffari, left, and CEO Arash Mahin. (Darren Brown, OBJ)

Professional trainer, speaker and coach Ann Max shares a little something in common with Princess Leia, according to a friend of hers.

It's not a gold bikini or a croissant-like hairdo, but Ms. Max's friend has told her that the walking, talking, borderless video version of her appearing on her Productive to the Max website looks a lot like that famous scene in Star Wars where a tiny hologram of Princess Leia appears and asks for Obi-Wan's help.

The company behind the video spokesperson technology is local firm vdoLife, whose offering is an interactive video overlay which can be installed on a website with a single line of script.

VdoLife CEO Arash Mahin said the beauty of the company's offering is that it's unlike regular online videos which are usually large, cumbersome files that have to be embedded into a client's website, often requiring a rebuilding of already complex code to accommodate the video. VdoLife's hosts the Macromedia Flash overlays and streams the video into customers' websites, eliminating the need for clients to host the videos themselves.

All the client has to do, he said, is film the video spokesperson at a green-screen studio and send the raw footage to vdoLife.

As well, vdoLife's technology allows clients to add clickable functions to overlays to redirect visitors to specific areas of a website, or to survey and track visitors to eventually personalize their surfing experiences. Clients are able to view how often visitors click through the video, or how often they've replayed or stopped the video.

There's also an 'anti-annoyance' feature that allows visitors to turn off the video or play it on mute, and clients can easily determine how often the overlays appear on their websites.

"What I've heard over and over again from clients is that this is 'cool,' or 'Thanks for breathing life into our website,'" said Mr. Mahin.

"The timing is right for our product – there's a demand for more personalization, Internet speeds have increased and the tools are there (to build it), so it all glued together."

VdoLife is just starting to market its product, but already it's attracted the attention of clients such as Mayor Larry O'Brien, Alberta Premier El Stelmach, the Boston School Board and business writer Mark Yarnell. The company's clients have reported click-through rates and full video views of about 25 to 30 per cent, compared to the one- to two-per-cent returns usually seen from direct mail.

More than 20,000 people saw Mr. Stelmach's March election video, and 48 per cent of all visitors to his site viewed all 30 seconds of the clip, the company said.

The numbers appear to support the idea that it's prime time for the online video advertising market, with a 2007 eMarketer report noting that 50 per cent of the total U.S. population of 155.2 million will watch videos online this year. Companies are projected to spend $1.35 billion this year alone on online video advertising, a number that could grow to as much as $4.3 billion by 2011.

Ms. Max said the technology is especially good for someone in her line of work, and added click-throughs on her website have increased by about 50 per cent from the numbers on her previous site.

"For someone like me, it's important to get me in front of the public, and it's a leg up in a way because customers want to know who they're dealing with," she said. "It puts a personal spin on your website ... you're right there and people can get a glimpse of what you're like as an individual, which for a coach is very important. Instead of just a picture, you're saying things and it adds meaning and enforces the message you're trying to get across."

The ability to establish a relationship with visitors is a key benefit of the technology, said Katherine Fletcher, managing director of communications services company iStudio, who has recommended vdoLife to some of her clients.

"That personal user experience is part of everything online these days, which you see in the growth of social networking and YouTube, and with vdoLife you get a sense of the personality of the company, rather than it being a faceless organization ... it's a real person," Ms. Fletcher said. "It's also more than just a talking head in a video, since it encourages interaction and you can set it up so the video spokesperson invites you to take the next step, such as doing a poll, and the user is invited to enter into a conversation, putting control in the hands of the customers."

Ms. Fletcher noted that the "light footprint" of the technology is particularly attractive because it makes it easy to introduce without the need for massive hardware investments, and is therefore more accessible to a broader number and variety of organizations.

She said despite the richness of the offering, the price point of vdoLife's product is extremely affordable and comparable to that of an e-mail distribution service such as GOT Corp.'s Campaigner, with the company charging only a fraction of a cent per video view that lasts for a predetermined number of seconds.

"It's quite accessible, not just for large corporations with big budgets, but for small organizations such as non-profits, and it's a sexy way to get a similar level of engagement," Ms. Fletcher said.

As well, vdoLife's technology offers a variety of applications beyond simply selling a product, she added: customers can use the video spokesperson to recruit staff, or provide e-learning opportunities, or to broadcast a critical message urgently in emergency situations such as a flu epidemic, since it is relatively easy to change.

She noted that it isn't for every website, since some people may find the technology obtrusive or annoying if it always pops up automatically, and said the 'anti-annoyance' feature is a good idea. "It's a very fresh tool, but if we started to get every website adopting this, it might get old very quickly."