Issued by: Laura Hunt
414-229-6447
llhunt@uwm.edu
Date: Nov. 11, 2002
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Issued by: Laura Hunt Date: Nov. 11, 2002 |
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MILWAUKEE - With new Internet tools that allow online consumers to "try on" apparel using a virtual model of themselves, the main barrier to cyber clothes shopping has been hurdled.
Convenient? No question. But there is more to virtual body modeling than picking out clothes. The language used at such sites can be deliberately misleading and even harmful to a shopper's self-image, according to a UWM professor.
Virtual body modeling is another way for stores to communicate with consumers, not a reality check, says John Jordan, assistant professor of communication, who studies the rhetoric of the Internet. "That's why its messages straddle the line of ambiguity."
Retailers like Land's End, Lane Bryant, the Home Shopping Network, Limited Too, J. Crew and JC Penney now offer online customers a virtual dressing room where they create a model of themselves by answering a series of prompts about weight, body shape and even hair color.
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The site keeps control of body attributes so that consumers will be more comfortable with the model. For example, only two choices for bust size exist for women: "small-medium" and "medium-large." Choices for age include: "younger" and "more mature."
The exercise ends with the message, "I will look like you as much as you want me to." "The idea here is that the store puts the responsibility for the model's accuracy in your hands, because you created it," says Jordan, who has written a paper called "(Ad)Dressing the Body." This kind of representation is too manipulative, he adds.
"Body self-consciousness is reinforced with the language of the computer pretending that it is giving you a true picture when, in fact, it is biased toward the store goals more than the customers,'" he says.
Wording that offers fitting tips and suggests matching garments is designed to create the perception in the mind of the shopper that the service is both personal and expert.
My Virtual Model, Inc. is the multimedia firm that powers the technology behind virtual models in the U.S. and Canada. Its technology also is offered on interactive CD-ROMs. Americans, particularly women, are shopping online more and more. According to emarketer, online merchants are expected to have another year of double digit growth during the holiday shopping season, compared to only 3 or 4 percent growth at physical stores.
Although the messages consumers encounter at body modeling sites are similar to those they find in advertising, such as on TV or in magazines, Jordan points out one important distinction. "The difference online is, we are all participating in it," he says. "The Web is an interactive medium."
And it's becoming more so.
The Web site for the Nutri-System weight loss program uses the technology to show a heavy woman "melting down" to a much slimmer body. The message is only part of the story, however. "It shows the results, but no signs of the struggle it took to get there," says Jordan.
Glamour magazine now offers a virtual makeover using the technology and the Walt Disney Company puts out a CD-ROM that allows girls to see what they look like wearing the gowns of princesses from its animated movies. Jordan has been interested in the collision of culture and technology, particularly on the Internet, since the early days of shopping on the Web.
A self-professed computer geek, he was shopping online when most people were still reluctant to try.
While working at a software company during college, he became interested in how spaces and experiences are translated for cyber-consumers. When photos are not enough, highly selective messages fill in the gaps. "Visualization is a powerful motivator - and it's useful," he acknowledges. "But people should think about how these images affect them."
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