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…

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 16th, 2007 at 5:52 pm and is filed under Advertising, Design, Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.