Renee DeCoskey
Looking for an innovative way to market your product? Take a page out of Diesel’s book — or, rather, out of their Spring/Summer 2010 catalogue, the online version of which is nominated for a South by Southwest Interactive Award in the business category. This short sort of music video for “A Hundred Lovers” by Josep, which promotes Diesel’s SS10 line in a fresh way, is a marketing tool that stands in stark contrast to traditional advertising.
We’ve all seen traditional clothing catalogues before: an image of a smiling person just casually hanging out in nature, perfectly dressed, each article of clothing labeled by a letter with a corresponding description including color and size options below. The same holds true for online catalogues, generally speaking, except maybe it’s simply a picture of the items against a white background. Regardless, the product doesn’t come to life. Even in short 30 second TV commercials, we get a chance to see people in the clothing moving around a little bit, but then we’re limited in which pieces we get to see. It’s certainly not feasible for a company to show its entire line in that short span of time.
But Diesel’s found a way to change that.
When you, the user, visited the company’s website to view the SS10 collection, you were able to view “A Hundred Lovers” to see the catalogue in motion. The video opens with a man and a woman sitting at a table, and immediately, just by moving your mouse over the film, you will see arrows pop up to indicate where you can click to learn more. Not only are you able to read a short, sometimes amusing blurb about the character, but, more importantly, you’re able to essentially take apart each of their ensembles, click on each piece, and learn more about it. When those two people get up to dance, others join them. Every few beats the four people dancing will change, and with them, new outfits. You can click on all of them! Pieces will repeat, too, so if there’s something you liked but you missed clicking on it, chances are good that you’ll see it again.
My only complaint with this interactive catalogue is that, towards the end, the beat of the music really speeds up, and so does the change of characters in the film. Some of them are up for barely a second, so you’d need to click fast because it’s kind of difficult to see the product — it’s almost solely aesthetic at that point.
Though it’s no longer available (but replaced by a fun magnetic poetry game on the error page), the traditional catalogue was also available for viewing and a link to it appeared below the film. This seems like a good way to go about business, providing a means for both traditional and non-traditional catalogue-viewers.
All in all, Diesel has provided its customers with a very cool interactive shopping experience, but there’s no reason that the concept has to be solely applied to clothing. Got something to promote? Give this marketing technique a try.
Image Source: Wikipedia
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Renee DeCoskey.
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Love the Diesel stuff – and what’s more is that it was done by the firm that’s a finalist in the same category – 9 Threads.com They have a very innovative spirit at that company.
Yes! I checked out 9 Threads…. very cool website, too. So much to look at, and I agree — very innovative spirit.