HP developing behavioral tool

Hewlett-Packard, a marketer that has moved 40% of its ad budget to the digital space, is beta-testing i-catcher, a behavioral tool that it plans to launch in March 2010.

I-catcher charts consumers' attention to each piece of content on a Web page. Some HP customers are using the product in beta, but the company would not reveal the identity of those clients.

The i-catcher tool indicates to marketers where and for how long an item should be offered on a Web page to increase views, said Michael Mendenhall, CMO at HP.

Mendenhall explained that Bernardo Huberman, director of the Information Dynamics Laboratory at HP, created the algorithms for the tool that tracks "attention and decay" to predict what efforts will become viral and which will fade.

Mendenhall said HP is "very committed" to engagement marketing. "It's not just about interruptive marketing," he said. "It's about engagement."

To improve its position in the direct mail, transactional and transpromo markets, HP announced an alliance with RR Donnelley in September to develop digital printing platforms for digital inkjet presses.