A little case study for you today:

http://theclimateisrightfortrains.com/

I came across this URL on print recruitment campaign targeting university/college students in a magazine a client publishes.

First of all, the site is awesome. I love the design. Unique use of space.

The site takes great advantage of the widescreens. On my 1920×1200 22″ screen the site looks awesome. On my 1280×768 12″ laptop screen it looks great. It reduces well to < 1024 as well. Kudos and high marks for use of screen real estate at the same time as maximizing horizontal space on the new wide format.

Clicking on any one of the menu items brings up some beautiful photography and a little two line pitch. Nicely done. Great copy, pulls well, I was immediately intrigued.

So far so good!

But… here is where the site totally fails.

You click on the link to learn more and it takes you to a page of scrolling text.

First of all I’m not a big fan of internal scroll bars, but in an all Flash site that is well dimensioned, it can work. Second, the page is 2-3 pages of scrolling text. What the hell? I went from beautiful images of trains and a gorgeously designed website, to text. Honestly, you can write the most profound copy that would change my life forever, but no one will read it. You just set yourself up for failure.

But I read it. On my 4th visit to the site and just to write this blog entry, I read it. And you know what? The copy is fregging interesting. It’s snippets of articles and quotes that lead you to original sources flogging trains as green commuters. Great stuff - well it could be great stuff, except it’s badly used.

Honestly, how hard would it have been to put in some <Prev | Next> and made those pages into a slide show with a few lines of text, some great supporting photographs and actually PITCHED the information.

And here’s the clincher. Ok, here’s your scenarios “so I’m a student and I couldn’t care less about trains except to get my home on breaks. I’m an engineering student and i never thought of getting into trains, cause it was a dead technology.. I’m more interested in aerospace and Virgin’s new airline… or hybrid/hydrogen car technology, etc.”

Ok, so now you’ve convinced me trains can be cool and appeal to my youthful idealism…

Where’s your close Bombardier? Where is the “come work for us, cause we’re a great company, we’re green, we’ve been green for a long time cause we build trains. See - trains do rock, and green has been the colour of our blood, our ethos, and we want YOU to drive the next generation of mass transportation vehicles to make this world a better place…”.

You’ve hooked with this website, you’ve then just as completely fallen over. You have to close the loop.

I can totally ignore the buried copy, but seriously where is your close?? “I AM A STUDENT AND I WANT MORE INFORMATION ON WORKING FOR BOMBARDIER’S MASS TRANSIT DIVISION! Oh well. Time to check out the latest YouTube video and see if anyone posted anything new on my Super Wall…”

Lessons for everyone else:

• Great design - use it for inspiration
• Great use of horizontal screen real estate
• Nice use of photography and copy
• Internal scroll bars are ok in this scenario - but are too narrow
• Mouse scroll wheels don’t work on internal scroll bar, this is doable, do it!
• NO CLOSE! You have to close the loop. This is like an e-commerce site that has convinced you to buy but no BUY NOW button. Don’t make the same mistake, think through the whole loop - intrigue, entice, inspire, and CLOSE.

The climate might be right for trains, but it’s not for recruiting using this website. Too bad, it’s a beautiful design…

Ok, most advertising campaigns today are brutally short sighted and missing the big opportunity that technology is enabling. And those that are taking advantage of the tech, are probably not maximizing, or anywhere nearing the potential they can realize…

So what are the approaches that should be used if the spot ad is dead? Here is a list to start with:

Interaction, interdependence, grass roots initiatives, multi-channel interactive media, conversation catalysts, customer driven feedback cycles empowering iterative product development, automated tracking and recursive real-time changes and so on.

Ok, so what does all that stuff mean?

Interaction is the key to engaging customers. It was difficult to do 10 years ago, but we now have the technological capability, via Internet and wireless (and other), to automate interaction with our customers. Better still, it allows us to build a relationship not just between an advertiser and the target audience, but, and this is the most important step – between the target audience members themselves.

Look at the success of MySpace. Its success rocketed when it became a venue for like-minded music lovers to find each other and support their favourite indie bands. You had overnight indie band sensations. There are countless stories of 4 guys in a rock band that had been doing evening and weekend gigs while choking down 40 hour a week day jobs for the last 5 years. They had fans, but they were scattered. 20 fans here, 50 there, another few over that other town. Through MySpace they were able to consolidate their fan base, associate themselves with a genre, and the fans spread the word about their music. A month later, all the day jobs were quit and instead of selling 3000 albums a year, they were selling 20,000 self pressed. All of a sudden they could make a decent living off their own music - live their passion.

So what does music bands and MySpace have in common with big brand advertisers?

It is a simple lesson in consolidating your passionate fans in a given market segment and empowering them to tell your story FOR YOU.

This is the TRUE interaction – it’s not about brand-X shoving another message down customer-Y’s throat, it’s about encouraging customer-Y to meet other customer-Y’s so they group together, and in numbers they have a voice, and that voice can be empowered to expand the brand. The collective voice of the brand loyalists turns them into activists – and they voices should be listened to closely.

ASIDE — I love how big brands spend so much money on market research. Wrigley’s did it recently trying to figure out what kids want in a pack of gum. The outcome? That kids tie their identity with the things they have in their pockets, the clothes they wear, the music they listen to, and the activities they engage in. Conclusion - let’s make a cool package for the gum so it looks good when you pull it out of your pocket and put it down next to your cell phone and iPod. Wow, staggering! They should have bought me a cup of coffee and I would have imparted the same wisdom while proving my point with a hundred case studies of other companies that did exactly what they did, but for shoes, shorts, shirts and so on. I’ll be using Wrigly as a case study for my clients when they ask me what kids want. Save them a cool mil or two. Anyway…

Ok, so what does that have to do with the original topic? Well market research is skewed. You’re picking a random assortment of your target audience to get a sense of what your brand should do, say, be. Honestly, how do you get anything but average results from the approach? I can prove it to you statistically if you want. It’s a simple relationships between the larger your human sample size the further your return will approach an average value. What do I mean by average value? I mean you’re going to design a product that is average and entirely forgettable.

Instead look to the LOYALISTS! They are your fan base, your market, they are the early adopters and those who will vocally judge your product. They are the people who others seek advice from when looking at buying your product, cause they know the category so well. They are the ones who will trumpet your cause for you. They will do an infinitely better job at selling it than you can ever do. You just can’t have the same relationship with their peers as they do (friends & family!).

INTERACTION people. It’s not just about you and your audience, but creating a circle of loyalty around your brand, and have them trumpet your greatness!

Next post – a bit more on interdependence…