Summer Inbox Report

Have you noticed all the brands taking advantage of the Summer season? From flashy fireworks to Olympic fever, here are some of the season’s coolest, smartest, and most noteworthy emails to hit my inbox. Enjoy!

Betty Crocker put together this very pinterest-y 4th of July top 10 list, with a great poll banner in the middle to help encourage feedback and interaction.
There were LOTS of animated fireworks going off in my inbox for the 4th of July, here’s a roundup of a few good ones: Kohl’s, J. Jill, Anthropologie, Home Decorator’s Collection, J. Crew, and HP.

A few other retailers bucked the trend of animated fireworks, choosing to celebrate in their own style. I really like how Lancome used make-up powders for their fireworks design, and Jack Spade made America a birthday cake instead.
Modcloth is doing something very cool with segmentation, by sending this little note at the top of emails to gmail customers, instructing them to ‘star’ their messages. Very smart!
CB2 included a fun summer mixtape at the bottom of their summer party essentials email, and asked subscribers to share their favorites, too.
At first glance you may not notice the faint flickering animation effect in this DirectTV email — but the subtle glow really helps bring that image to life.
Free People sent me a great example of a reactivation campaign in action.
And Modcloth recognized the 1 year anniversary of my email sign up.

The Container Store celebrated its own birthday by sharing a little history and their seven foundation principals.
Pun of the month: this J.Jill email combines a punny headline with the subject line “Many Tanks” + a preheader that reads “You can tank us later.” Gotta give it up to them for triple pun dedication.
Backcountry uses some interesting click navigation methods by showing a gauge of intensity with kayaks, and a cute map of the US to shop by zone.
I love the CTA for the Chewbacca messenger bag in this Think Geek newsletter! When you get the opportunity to put a Wookiee in your email, why not throw in some Shyriiwook, too?
The Limited held a month-long competition to up their facebook fan count with a friend referral promotion.
Ironically, the main image in this Barney’s email falls far below the fold. That struck the email geek in me as pretty funny.
There’s nothing incredibly different about the messaging in this Carter’s email, I just love the animation so much I want to squeeze it.

I’m not sure if the intention of the banner in this Banana Republic email was to collect customer profile info or not, but it’s a great opportunity! When I saw that banner, I instantly thought “Why, yes I am a petite… and thank you for asking!” I clicked it, so it’ll be interesting to see if I start receiving more emails tailored for petites.
In a direct profile acquisition email, Philosophy sent a request for me to tell them my birthday so I could get a special gift. How thoughtful!
Threadless challenged designers to illustrate “comics-on” tees to go along with a story written for them by Neil Gaiman. The email got its own comic makeover as well. Pretty cool promotion all around.
Fellow 80s children: remember hypercolor tees? Well, they’re back! As demonstrated by this cool American Apparel animation. Time to stock up on some tees and start wearing your overalls with one strap again.
How cool is this Ralph Lauren Team USA email? I just wish they had my info so the jersey would have shown up personalized instead of saying “Your Name.” Bummer!
Lots of retailers jumped on the Olympics bandwagon, and due to the Olympics’ strict trademark policies, found interesting ways of theming content in a roudabout way. Here’s a few I thought stood out: Benefit “let the pretty games begin” with London-themed packaging, Dean & Deluca brought us gold-worthy flavors of England, Not On The High Street celebrated all things London, and Bebe went for the gold in glam.