July 2006 Archives

From: Polo.com
Subject Line: Create Your Own: Introducing the Team Polo
Date: Thursday, June 29, 2006

From: MINIUSA
Subject Line: Let's be small with huge imaginations
Date: Thursday, July 20, 2006



From: Room & Board
Subject Line: Furniture Designed by You, Built by Us
Date: Wednesday, July 26, 2006

From: NIKEiD.com
Subject Line: Back to School at NIKE iD
Date: Friday, July 28, 2006



MINI's personalized car roof is probably the most extreme example I've seen: from clothing to furniture, personalization is showing up on ecommerce sites web-wide. Now, we're not just consumers; we're clothing designers and interior decorators as well. While I enjoyed "expressing myself" at NIKEiD.com and "creating my own style" at polo.com, I pause to consider the social and cultural implications of the personalization craze. If you're curious about what makes something like personalization popular with the young'ns, if you're marketing to the "coveted 18-24" shopper, or even if you're just looking for an interesting read, check out Generation Me by Jean Twenge. It keys into the general characteristics of Americans born after 1980. It's a fascinating read.

From: UrbanOutfitters.com
Subject Line: Tunics: They're long shirts.
Date: Thursday, July 20 2006

While I appreciate the GNR reference ("Appetite for Destruction" was the first cassette tape I ever bought back in the fourth grade), I have to say that Urban Outfitters' new look and feel for Fall 2006 is just plain depressing. They pioneered some great design trends last year with their "cut and paste" and "rubber stamp" looks; in comparison, the Fall '06 designs look so sad and flat. I have to wonder whether it's a direct expression of the company's financial performance, which has been disappointing so far for 2006. Click here for a Yahoo! Finance article with details.

From: Hollister
Subject Line: Take a Trip with Hollister - Downtown to Surftown
Date: Thursday, July 20 2006

Regardless of my feelings about Hollister and parent brand Abercrombie & Fitch - namely that they use sex inappropropriately to market to children - I have to applaud their brilliant branding efforts. I do not frequent their website much less their stores, but even through my limited contact with the brand - via email - I have developed a very strong sense of the Hollister "imaginaire." Hollister is not just a clothing retailer. It's a place, a texture, a way of life, a state of mind - an imaginary west coast refuge of laid-back beauty. It's in the words, the font faces, the imagery. It's an incredibly well-constructed illusion that promises teen paradise is as close as slipping on a "Mountain Road Beach Henley".

As the subject line reads: "Take a Trip with Hollister - Downtown to Surftown". Click here to see a technically impressive execution of this seductive imaginary world.

From: FreePeople.com
Subject Line: For the Season In Between
Date: Tuesday, July 18 2006

Come play with us, Danny...

From: Paul Smith
Subject Line: Paul Smith Newsletter - Paul Smith Sale
Date: Thursday, June 29, 2006

While the generic subject line and missing menu navigation reveal a lack of experience in email marketing, here, Paul Smith integrates product and messaging seamlessly. Love the umbrella-sock "L". What fun!

From: J.Crew
Subject Line: Crewcuts has arrived.
Date: Friday, March 31, 2006

From: online@luckybrand.com
Subject Line: New Lucky Kid for Summer from Lucky Brand Jeans - Plus Free Shipping
Date: Wednesday, June 7, 2006



I understand experts have observed a cultural phenomenon wherein American parents are casting their children more and more in their own images, right down to the $120 designer denim. Here, two national retailers jump on the "Mini-Me" bandwagon. The forecast:
1) J.Crew: What TOOK you so long? I forsee success and many mini-polo-wearing babies. (I heard from a retail associate that Crewcuts merchandise is flying off the shelves.)
2) Lucky Brand Jeans: I anticipate a more uncertain future. While I don't know for sure, I would imagine Lucky's target demographic falls into a pre-marriage pre-baby-making age bracket. I see folks in tie-dyed Janis Joplin t-shirts balking at the thought of matching kiddies in Skull & Crossbones onesies.

On an unrelated note, Lucky Brand Jeans puts so much effort into their retail stores - the look, the displays, the whole experience is very unique and well-done. While their website and email campaigns integrate some of the retail location feeling successfully, the overall production quality is disappointing in comparison.

From: katespade.com
Subject Line: we're helping you say "thank you"
Date: Thursday, June 8, 2006

From: FreePeople.com
Subject Line: Are Your Friends on the List to Get Our Catalog? Are You?
Date: Friday, June 9, 2006

From: UrbanOutfitters.com
Subject Line: So awesome, you bought them all. (We made more!)
Date: Friday, July 7, 2006

My penmanship has degenerated into an illegible scrawl; my atrophied muscles cramp over a single "thank you" note. Notes, postcards and post-its: as snail mail goes the way of the dinosaur, handwriting has been showing up all over the web. Here, Kate Spade, Free People and Urban Outfitters use handwriting to convey the sense that we're part of an intimate person-to-person dialogue: accepting Mr. Oliver Oh-So-Right's marriage proposal on monogrammed stationery; participating in what appears to be a coke-snorting boho correspondence; receiving cavalier notes "heart, us". I feel more authentic already.

From: CB2
Subject Line: new...the affordable modern catalog
Date: Tuesday, July 18, 2006

While I appreciate CB2's "all modern eyes" campaign for it's novel kaleidoscopic display of product, I am most interested in it's implications when read as a cultural document. Here, the Buddha is purely decorative, time costs just $29.95, and the mandala - a ritualistic geometric design symbolic of the universe, used in Hinduism and Buddhism as an aid to meditation - features the most important components of our modern universe: merchandise, which we subconsiously believe that, when purchased, will bring us consumer nirvana.

University of Washington Asian Languages & Literature Professor Collet Cox often refers to a mental construct she terms "the grid of desire" wherein we separate and fixate upon objects outside of ourselves, hoping to find completion in union with these objects. Expanding upon that idea, we can see the EDM is a virtual "grid of desire," uniting customers with Gaucho Side Chairs, inducing a temporary shopper's high. Whenever I make an especially unnecessary or expensive purchase, I like to joke: "Now, I am complete."

Some of you may be wondering why I haven't been posting as many reviews over the past two weeks. The reason is simple: I haven't seen much worth commenting on. I've received message after message, but very few of these have done much but clog my inbox. These are the email campaigns that "cried wolf": messages lacking a true message - ones that do not offer value to a subscriber - delivered just because they could be.

While I understand the allure of delivering a quick jolt to sales via email - particularly as sales are soft across many industries - we have to remember that email marketing is also about tending to long-term relationships with subscribers. Each time you "cry wolf" and send out a pointless campaign, you're eroding customers' trust, patience and interest. Think before you send, or else the big bad wolf will come and eat up all your list members!

For those of you who haven't come across the EmailSherpa Ecommerce Benchmark Guide 2006 - or were wondering whether it's worth the $297 pricetag - I recommend picking it up; it's well worth the cost. Click here to check it out.

From: Scoop NYC
Subject Line: New for Fall: Tory Burch + Kooba @ scoopnyc.com!!
Date: Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Luxury retailers in particular need to pay attention to their EDM production values. While www.scoopnyc.com is a respectible-looking website, quality standards drop off on their email campaigns. This particular campaign body is coded as a single low-res graphic using an image map for linking. Image mapping doesn't work in several popular email browsers, disablings click-through for a substantial percentage of subscribers. The rest of the message was coded without browser-compatibility in mind, apparent from the random positioning of the search box, a stray call-to-action carrot, and even several special characters appearing in the upper-left corner of the message.

We can look at email campaigns as flashes in the pan, and from this perspective, details aren't so important. But we can also look at email marketing as an opportunity to cultivate an intimate, ongoing conversation with our customers. If we take this stance, what message does low production quality communicate?

We have to sweat the details and give customers the respect they deserve! They are the only reason you have a job!

From: The Land of Nod
Subject Line: Free Justin Roberts Music!
Date: Tuesday, July 11, 2006

There is much ado in the marketing world as advertisers navigate the dizzying maze of new media channels. Here, The Land of Nod experiments with Podcasting, which, like Free People's RSS Feed, is a novel foray into these unchartered lands. While I fail to draw a clear connection between furniture and music, I applaud Land of Nod's effort and bravery. Keep innovating!

From: info@mercedes-benz.com
Subject Line: Mercedes-Benz brand world - your registration
Date: Monday, July 10, 2006

First impressions are critical. The content and quality of your welcome message will influence a subscriber's behavior forever, determining whether or not he or she will continue to open - or even subscribe to - your campaigns.

I was disappointed by the Mercedes-Benz Brand World welcome message, which was not only dry but also, for reasons I cannot pinpoint exactly, feels very "English as a Second Language." Even the subject line - "Mercedes-Benz brand world - your registration" - is flat, sounding more like a rote operational message than a gracious welcome.

This message does nothing to service the website behind it, which is actually quite lovely. Click here to check it out.