A colleague recently sent me a link to the HEMA online store, based in Amsterdam.
HEMA is actually the first Dutch department store that was opened in Amsterdam. The flagship store opened on November 4, 1926, and now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands.
Despite the age of Hema, from a business point of view, it appears that they have persisted in keeping their image ‘fresh’, to continue to appeal to the masses and demand attention as a modern and innovative online store (not to mention their retail stores).
You may be wondering how a simple online store can be innovative, or even interesting. Most usability experts will argue that deviating from the tried and tested standard e-commerce website architecture (which the likes of Amazon.com have set the benchmark for) is a waste of time. You will simply lose customers during the sales process, as they will become confused, disengaged, and most probably leave your website without purchasing a single thing.
I think now is an appropriate time for you to visit the Hema site. Once you have clicked this link, sit back and take a few moments to of quiet delight as you watch the ensuing show that will soon unfold before your eyes.
The Flash site design of Hema is certainly not revolutionary, most of you have probably already seen these Flash overlay pages before (whereby an existing website appears to be ‘defaced’ or ‘vandalised’ as your computer seems to ‘come to life’ and take over your screen).
However, by doing this, Hema has created a Flash ’splash’ page which almost makes their own website a viral campaign in itself. To me, that sounds like the most successful viral campaign ever – driving traffic DIRECTLY to where you want them (as opposed to most other viral campaigns, which drive traffic to a landing page or alternative site, before attempting to redirect this web traffic to the primary website after their interest has been heightened).
If you own a lacklustre online site, perhaps you could look at leveraging of this concept to make your website a little more eye-catching and ’sticky’ . Or perhaps you have seen some even better instances of this type of viral marketing?
Either way, I’d love to hear your comments.
Link to this pageRelated posts:
- Unloader – Interactive viral campaign targetted at office workers I recent came across this interactive campaign by Nokia, aimed at the Nokia business crowd. The campaign is delivered...
- Coke Light – Amazing Flash Website I am not the biggest fan of building websites entirely in Flash. Sure, Flash is great in small doses...
- Online Guerilla Marketing You’ve probably seen many above the line guerilla marketing techniques. Traditionally, these methods have included the likes of pasting...
Browse Timeline
Comments ( 3 )
I saw this site a few weeks ago – pretty fascinating – but I wonder if beyond the viral aspect driving eyeballs to the site, is this bringing in qualified customers?
Andy added these pithy words on
May 09 09 at
4:31 am
Hey Andy – that's a good question. Some would argue that an increase in the number of visitors to a website has to have a positive effect on sales, through the sheer magnitude of traffic passing by….however if the visitors are not interested in the product, then it doesn't matter how good the viral campaign is, sales will not increase significantly. I guess it comes back to always providing consumers with products that are popular, useful and affordable, and then building the viral campaigns to match!
JakeThePeg added these pithy words on
May 09 09 at
8:27 am
Excellent post!
Have loved this sitew for a long time…
do you know WHO created it?
su added these pithy words on
May 10 09 at
11:44 am
