Product Site Worst Practice: Geberit

Someone just asked me: “Hey, you wanna blog about a really bad user experience?” and I said: “Not really.” But after I saw this, I couldn’t help it, because missed brand engagement opportunities make me mad.

This is a Microsite for Geberit, makers of Bathroom applicances. They are trying to introduce the Japanese way of, you know, cleaning up after you are done with your business. Any creative would have had a field day with this briefing. Instead, what this brand ended up with is a stale, boring, marketing-speechy, product website that is neither engaging nor credible. No pun intended, but this looks too watered down to make this something people would want to send on to others.

Compare this to the Philips Shave Everywhere campaign. Personal grooming for men: also not an easy topic for brands to dare make engaging. Brand managers at Philips could have argued that the concept for the site http://www.shaveeverywhere.com/ was way too racy or impromper. They didn’t, and they won lots of awards, and more importantly: the site became viral. Geberit missed the chance to make this a fun, engaging experience. And don’t come to me with: oh yeah, but the target audience is older and more conservative. Conservative people are folders or crumplers, too. That’s an insight for you, right there. What a shame.

Augmented Reality that makes sense

Augmented Reality has been discussed for a while, but it not until now that practical application are slowly hitting the mainstream of brand communications. Costs have sunk, processor speed has gone up and applications have been written that makes it a possibility for everyone to try out.

However, application of AR are often for the sake of using the technology and not so much driven by real utility that improves or literally augments people’s experiences. Here is a good case from Lego that actually makes a lot of sense: you can see the assembled toy truck by holding only its packaging up against the camera.

Via Notcot

For the Love of Beer: Donating Carbs to Americans

Just found this website from Australia for Toohey’s Beer.

The idea is quite funny: Since Toohey’s only has 1/3 of the carbs, why not donate the other 2/3 to the people who love them the most: Americans. The website looks like a relief effort where you can pitch in and deliver carbs to a bunch of different US cities by flying a plane over google maps satellite photos and dropping the carbohydrate cargo.

I like this idea, because it is fun to make fun of Americans, but I wish the game was more fun and a bit more engaging. Also, I think a highscore ranking would do well in getting people to sign-up.

Uniqlo meets Cirque du Soleil

Pretty Cool Idea: Have the Cirque’s artists wear your sweaters while they do their acts, make a rich video flash website and sell it.

Check it out.

Redbull’s use of Flash

Check out this highly interactive site by Redbull.

You can easily build your own plane design in this fun application and take it to the sky, to see how well it flies. A great inspiration for all those who program flash. Also, what I found really well done was the level of detail as far as making even forms and buttons usable.

Also VERY surprising for this brand: MOZART. Can only be explained by the fact the Red Bull’s CEO is Austrian, and Austrians think Mozart was Austrian.

Talking about a Change of Perspective, literally

This invention, questionable in its utility, nonetheless seemed interesting enough to share with you.

It stems from one of the projects of Julius von Bismarck, and it is a contraption where its user sees himself only from above. I guess it’s a new category: not augmented reality, but rather altered perspective reality which allows you to experience things in a totally different way.

Thanks, Sabine for the link.

The Starbucks Shopper Experience

I was so psyched when I saw this post on Swissmiss. Finally somebody took the time to point out the obvious obfuscation and mind-bogglingly inane product naming convention at Starbuck. I am sure people who ever ordered at Starbucks have found it to be a suboptimal transaction experience, too.

Nokia/Coke Coop: Make your own ringtone

On their site Nokia/Coke work together to give their young audience a reason to interact. In a fun design, you can record your voice, apply effect and create your own ringtone using Flash technology. You then enter your phone number and get ringtone delivered to you. Great way to generate addresses, indeed: Give kids a tool they enjoy using in exchange for their information.

Tobaccowala on the evolving role of marketing

Sometimes, you get good articles from all these newsletters you subscribe to. In this case an article by Lori Luechtefeld from iMedia Connection.

She interviewed Denuo’s CEO Tobaccowala. I like some of the things he says, such that business models have to change the way software does. You can’t keep flailing a dead horse, such called advertising agency business model, or even traditional marketing business model, you have to move on. Also he says that, much more than marketing officers, you need facilitators:

The rest, he says, is all about facilitation. “We need to basically organize the facilitation,” Tobaccowala says. “We need to have chief facilitation officers.” Rather than spending their time crafting messages, marketers should be spending their time helping consumers gain access to companies and their resources — thereby making it easy for consumers to market to themselves.

This totally reflects our own agency philosophy which we call HumanKind: go from milieus and demograhics to actual human behavior, from messaging to experiences, from campaigns to sustained value exchange, and from rigid posititioning and idle brand promise to a human brand purpose. Essentially what he talks about is how marketing organizations and their agencies have to change in order to actually deliver product innovation which can be translated into marketing innovations as well.

To me, the idea of faciliation, seen from the agency side is an important one. If you actually retool your agency structure and process that allows you to deal with creating experiences leading to value exchange that gives people access to companies, you immediatly realize how much more involved your stategic and creative delivery gets. Planning and designing experiences is just much more complex than a catchy claim and a key visual.

But there is more in the article which actually is more specific that lofty philosophies. Check it out.

Schick Manscaping

Considering a mustache-do? Well, no need to try it out for real. Schick’s Manscaping campaign features a awesome little facial hair simulator.

See on Between0and1