Interactivation (Mag Rack) Launches "Dialog Engine" Interactive Video Marketing Tool

Interactivation, the recently re-named company (formerly known as Mag Rack) that operates the Mag Rack free-VOD niche-magazine service, announced Tuesday the release of a product called Dialog Engine, which it bills as an interactive video tool for marketers and advertisers that transforms traditional one-way brand messaging into an interactive and immersive video experience. "The Web is an interactive medium, Web video usage is rising, yet consumers have never been able to interact with video," Interactivation president, Matthew Davidge, said in a prepared statement. "Improving the interaction and response rates of online video and other traditionally less interactive media, such as outdoor and TV advertising, is good for both the brand and for consumers who will be able to obtain information where and when they want it, and get involved on-the-spot when they see a call to action."

According to Interactivation, Dialog Engine is a proprietary scripted conversation technology that allows brands to deploy video assets that respond to consumer input. It also connects video, text and voice interactions, the company says, allowing, for example, TV or outdoor advertisements to start SMS texting dialogs that drive people to brand interaction, and thus increase the power of brand messaging and the likelihood of purchase. While a traditional TV commercial creates a large number of passive or "lean-back" impressions, Interaction says, with the deployment of Dialog Engine the same commercial generates a smaller but more valuable number of active or "lean-forward" interactions with motivated and/or interested consumers who can be moved towards purchase.

Interactivation says that Dialog Engine was initially conceived as an interactive speech and texting project for MTV Networks, and then further developed by the company's founders, Davidge and Joe Covey, to extend brands'/users' experience as a way to inform, converse with and entertain users. The solution has been deployed on the company's Mag Rack and Concert.TV VOD networks.