Razzle Dazzling Your Website

An article in the Wall Street Journal talked about businesses taking a more interactive approach to their websites to gain more awareness, publicity, clients, and sales. 

My thinking of this idea: Viewers will probably close the box a few seconds after the video starts to get down to the real reason they visited the site, but hey, what harm can it do? 

I checked out one of the companies mentioned, Nike, to see what they had come up with on their website. 

My thinking of Nike's video: 

First few seconds- Hmmm. Seems like a pretty simple 'feel good' advertisement...nothing out of the ordinary...

Couple seconds later- Are they naked?? Can they show butts in advertisements?? 

Couple seconds later- My, how advertising has changed...

Couple seconds later- Giggling at various parts in the video

Couple seconds later- This is actually really funny...Well done, Nike, well done. 

Couple seconds later- Hey, I recognize the voice of that girl...oh! It's Kara Goucher, she coaches me on my ipod running download. Haha!

At end of video- I kind of want to go running naked now. 

Conclusion: It was a little over 2 minutes, which is LONG for an advertisement, but I watched the entire thing, giggled, thought Nike was extremely clever, and felt like buying their product at the end. Or at least browsing their shoes. In short--it worked. Check it out here. 

Another example: The author Jodi Picoult's website. Being an author, you would think there's not much she can do to 'show' her product besides a picture of her latest book. False. There's a trailer sneak peak of a new movie coming out in June that was created from her book My Sister's Keeper. There's a video promoting her newest book, Handle with Care, showing pictures of various things while she talks about the book and reads the first paragraph or so. 

Result? I'm on page 354 of Handle with Care. 

I'm not a sucker for advertisements and interactive websites. I'm just a sucker for GOOD advertisements and interactive websites. 

If you want more people coming to your website, add GOOD content. It's that easy. 

Until next time, 

Sloane and Chelsea