To be honest, I'm starting to loose a bit of faith in the web. It becomes strikingly obvious after seeing projects like this
http://h30466.www3.hp.com/campaign/touchsmart/ap/en/index.html?fbid=r_wPe8dueqW
I came across it on theFWA the other week when browsing the latest entries. It's not this example in particular. I could have picked most of the sites on there. Top marks for craftsmanship, without judging the style it self. Its very well executed.
But...
1. I know there has been pain.
What ever agency working for HP was sweating the last week. Late nights, just to pull the last pieced together. Fixing the final bugs etc.
2. I know they most likely didn't get to add all those finishing touches they initially thought of.
Ok, fair enough, the end user doesn't know about the above things, and without expectations they can enjoy the beautiful creation.
But...
I get the impression all these websites create less and less impact. When the user sees it they think "Wow, this is cool", clicking around for a few minutes. And the next day they forget about it because there is another cool campaign site to look at.
I was discussing this with my desk neighbor at The Farm Digital, where I'm currently working. I actually took the time to go through HP site just to see if it would pay off at the end. After quite a while I got to the point where I found out HP wanted to show me a touch screen computer that
comes in 2 different sizes. The time I spent getting to that point was a bit like a black hole eating my time. It didn't return anything to me, It didn't trigger my mind and imagination. I cant say I relay enjoyed or hated it either. It certainly didn't make me think of buying a touch screen.
My desk neighbor confronted me and asked me "So what would you have done?", I couldn't answer that. I have actually no idea.
It feels like the problem is more fundamental than that. HP makes ugly products, and are not desirable like products from apple. A well crafted website with nonsense won't save them. It won't turn HP into a lifestyle product or make it more desirable in any way. HP is a big known brand though. How did that happen? I guess you will be assured a certain quality by buying HP, not saying its the best quality around, but its certainly not crap. I wouldn't say they are any cheaper nor more expensive than any other similar brand.
The other question is, who makes up the numbers?
Numerous times I have heard a PM coming in saying "Hey guys, good news, the website have had X thousand visitors the first week, with an average of X thousand per day. They have been spending an average of X minutes on the website, which is very good. Well done team!".
Who are these X thousands of people? Is there actually that many potential touch screen buyers a day out there? Then thinking about putting my self in the mindset of these people. How did they end up on the site? Strongly doubt I would have ever seen this site if it wouldn't
have won any awards. The award sites are aimed towards people working in the industry anyway, and I doubt the industry people would have a significant impact on the numbers. So how does this site reach all the end users? Banners? Would this be proof of that people actually click on banners? If there was/is a banner campaign associated with it I'd love to see what the banners looked like, if that's the case. I can only imagine it being a luscious looking mysterious banners that makes people tempted to click on them.
I doubt you would get that response if it would have been more straight forward just saying they where selling touch screen computers. Maybe it's here where things starts to make sense? Thats where the numbers come from. All the people out there who are not web jaded, who haven't seen 1000 websites just like this one. They are the thousands of people who make up the numbers. If this is the case regarding the banners, it was a clever move. And as I mentioned before. HP is a big brand, and have thousands of users out there. A fair amount of them will have some reason for visiting the HP website sooner or later. I'm pretty sure HP is pushing the campaign pretty hard with banners on their own main site too.
I can only imagine who all these HP owners are. They didn't buy Dell because they want to go to a shop and touch and see the product live before buying it. It's not unlikely
they went to one of the home electronics supermarkets, such as PC world in the UK, or OnOff in sweden. These shops rarely host the cheaper no name brands, and the customers can be assure of getting a certain degree of quality. Even though makes such as HP, Compaq and Acer are not the cheapest on the market they will make out the cheaper range compared to brands like Apple and Sony at those electronics stores. I think that's where HP's market is, and I guess it's massive. I can just imagine they are the people living in the outskirts of the city, or in smaller towns, who consider buying a Ford or a Mazda. Buying their clothes at the Gap or Next in the UK, or Kappahl and Dressman in sweden. Having a mobile phone from Motorola or Siemens. Lured by the amount of Mega pixels in the add, they buy a compact digital camera they take out on the friday night taking photographs of their friends at the local bar. The aperture is to slow to take good pictures in darker environments, so the crappy flash goes off in their friends faces making them look pale and unhealthy. It also reveals how horrible the venue actually is when not in dimmed lights. And it didn't really capture that fun moment they thought they had (they would have thought otherwise without all those pints).
But they don't mind, as they don't know better. ***
Ok, now I start to understand why these websites actually works. I guess it wasn't hard to figure out that us people in online advertising are on a mission to grab these peoples attention, and if a small percentage of all those site visitors actually considers to get one of those touch screen computers the campaign was successful.
It's just sad that you just have to put in a big effort making a finnish rather than anything else to catch these peoples attention.
In this case I believe that the only core concept needed was to make it look cool. When coming to this point I which to change my initial sentence. Its not disbelief in the web as such and I don't dare say I have disbelief in humanity, even though I hope for some more engagement in life.
When saying a campaign site won't save HP and make them look cool, I was thinking from my own point of view. I still think this is correct, but in a bigger picture. But for the target group this might make a differance. Sad but true.
Even though I have no idea if this campaign was a success or not, if there was a banner campaign associated with it or any other statements I made are correct, I still found an answer
why I don't like this anymore. But I think I'm not that far from reality either.
If I cant fit into the target group I don't think I will ever be able to perform my best. Well, at least I'm working on something educational at the moment, but being like a "carpenter" hammering
others ideas together has also come to a point where that is not rewarding enough.
Basically, if my next step in life would involve stopping making no brainers, and become more than a carpenter it would be exactly the right direction. Starting a web agency would be like
taking a step deeper into it, even though I would be less of a carpenter. I want to step in a different direction without changing field completely, I don't want to start from scratch again
as I still feel I have been walking in the right direction and I'm on to something. A lot of goals I have had for the last couple of years have happened within one year, I feel this
is going to work out too, It's constantly on my mind.
Its a shame all these brains using advanced techniques just to make an absolute no brainer.
***
Note 1.
(As a side track to the statements I made regarding the HP buyers: I guess these statements can come across as me thinking they are not rich enough to get the good stuff. That's a definite NO, What I'm getting at is that people don't make an effort and don't aim high enough. For the same amount of money your spending on crap you could get something decent. A Canon 1D MkIII doesn't make you a good photographer. I fully understand that people have different fields of interests, and might care more about fishing equipment and less about computers. Thats perfectly fine, but people like me trying to make HP sound cool to the ones who usualy don't bother is just not my cup of tea. That's what I meant when writing me not being the target group. I never thought HP was cool, and me trying to make it come across as cool is just not going to work. I would want to dig deeper than that, and would want to do a whole brand makeover before trying to make them come across as cool in a single campaign.)
2 comments:
From what I see (and a lot of it is from working with the Hyper Island Master classes) you are not the only one feeling and thinking this way. Some say what's missing is the "social aspects" some say it is about developing products, not campaign sites.
I believe in this marketing shift from a passive audience to letting them interact with your brand (today) to get involved in the conversation about your brand to letting the audience shape your brand i.e. listen to them, develop the products they want etc.
The evolution of the campaign sites is then to either become useful tools that (in a fun way) extends the use of whatever it is marketing and/or become a backchannel to initiate conversations and get a feel from what people want form the brand. Lots of work to be done there.
If you want to change direction ever so slightly, I'm thinking Experience Technology :)
...Digital going into the real world.
Hope you are well over there mate!
You make several points throughout you long post that I more or less agree on. But...
HP seem to be doing quite well to me. Even trying out new a venture into touch-screens computers. Ahead of Apple I might add. In a word they are flashing out to try to get ahead in a market where no one has taken the lead so far.
With HP you get good value for money on laptops. Apple might be a tad better on the design side but I would say it's less value. HP also gets tons of costumers through their very cheap, and good, printers. If HP is doing bad it's because of the credit crunch as the people who are being hit the hardest are the same people who buy HP.
And what is cool? Apple can't be seen as cool by us anymore, can they? Everyone I know, including my cool mom, has a silver laptop now. It's gotten so far that Apple had to add a black frame on their monitor, making them looks like HP's. One could say they seem to have failed by not finding any more space to add silver. I would not be surprised if the MBP's in a couple of years are all silver and minimal again. A question we should ask is; where do we go from here? Black, White & Silver still feel to dominant to be knocked down from their throne. Replace the curves with sharp edges anyone?
I'm certain HP could be Apple (minus the OS) or Sony with their highend laptops if they wanted to. But why take the risk when they are doing well dominating a larger market together with just a handful of other companies? It's good value for people who don't care about cool or even to much about their product. They just want it to work. And it does. HP is a lifestyle brand too, just not yours or mine.
My final point is that it's not HP that is the problem. It's the dicks who keeps pitching something "cool" when HP should focus on being traditional and safe. But then again this is something new and new might have to be cool as it has no tradition.
Damn. I'm babbling as much as you now. I guess we both want to know how it is to be a normal idiot living in a suburban landscape.
cheers
m.
PS: This is written in OS X on a silver laptop.
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