Anatomy of an Apple Email

Source: Flowtown

Making Movies painful

Hoyts is one of the major cinema chains in Australia & New Zealand.  I've been sitting in their cinemas since I was a kid and intermissions still existed.  They form a huge part of some of my earliest cinema-going memories and helped fuel my ever growing passion for movies.

But I have a big problem with their website.

I dread every time I need to check a session time for one of their cinemas.  The navigation is painful, the site is completely cluttered, it doesn't use any type of smarts or autodetect, it ignores my profile information and the mobile site is next to impossible to find.  Yes, I'm going on a bit but let me qualify this a little more.

Firstly,lets talk about browser detection.  The design of the main site is the most mobile un-friendly site I've visited for a long time.  Surprising for a site that you'd think would have a lot of mobile traffic with people checking session times for a quick last minute decision to go see a movie.  There is a mobile site but good luck finding it.  Which brings me to my point - why do I have to go find the mobile site myself?  Why doesn't the site direct me to it automatically?  Who knows...

Next there's the fact that we're urged to 'buy tickets' wherever you look.  Now I know that selling tickets is almost the cinemas's number one reason for being (ripping you blind at the candy bar is their primary one), but do we need to have it shoved down our throats everywhere?  How about a softer sell?  How about 'session times' leading into a purchase funnel?

Correct me if I'm jumping to wild conclusions but I'm suspecting that most people that visit a cinema's website is to see what's on, when it's showing at their chosen location and finally, to buy tickets.  In that order.

So why flip the whole thing around?  Why make it hard for me to get to what I want?  I know where my local cinema is, I know what I want to see and I prefer to buy my tickets in person.  Just tell me when it's on please.  The irony is that the links to Bing in both the nav section and in the big ad sitting on the site both give you exactly what you want with quick well formed search string.  Session times in an easy to read format for my local cinema - heaven forbid.

I really hate it when I register on a site but every time I go there, I have to introduce myself all over again.  It's like a visit to old relative with alzheimers' - It's stuck in the past, technologically retarded and with no idea about who you are or why you're there.

To the point, how many people visit the site undecided about where they want to watch the movie?  I mean there's not exactly a cinema on every street corner.  You go to the Hoyts website pretty much knowing where your local screens are.

But the site has no idea.  And why should it really?  Well for a few reasons actually.  Firstly, it should know where I am and recommend my closest venue.  Secondly, if I've bought online before, this should be even easier for them to suggest.  Lastly, and more annoyingly, because I'm a Movie Club member!  They not only know where I live, but which cinemas I go to and what I see.  They even ask me for my preferred cinema!

Like sitting near a loud talker.  Like a mobile going off.  Like the frozen Coke machine being out of order.  Like not being able to open the choc-top pack (and having to deal with there being no banana flavour as advertised). ... You've failed me Hoyts.  :(

African Tigers...

This is the splash screen for the Optus 2010 FIFA World Cup mobile application.

Tigers in Africa?  Seems that someone somewhere along the line needs a lesson in either biology or geography, or both :)

And while I'm at it, that 32 panel black & white Telstar ball hasn't been used since 1974!

Adobe CS5 goodness!

Register for a preview of what new goodness the new CS5 will bring.

One of the most impressive features in Photoshop is the new Content Aware fill feature which basically takes cloning to a whole new level.  It's really impressive what this software can do.  Check out this video for a walkthrough of this amazing tool!

Inbox Roundup: To test or not to test?

Clearly, as an email marketer for 7 years, I firmly believe in the medium.  Email is the epitome of direct marketing - incredibly customisable, timely and measurable.  And it's also incredibly simple to execute.

This power and simplicity is obviously a recipe for disaster.  In a matter of seconds, you can not only make your brand look silly, but also cause PR nightmares (or dreams, depending on how you spin it).

I think there's really no reason to send your email campaign without testing it - aside from laziness.  Maybe when people think email testing, they think about the more complicated optimisation excercises such as A/B split and multivariate testing etc and their eyes glaze over.

But here all I'm going to focus on is something far more fundamental and simpler to understand.  The layout and design.

With the plethora of tools available online such as Previewmyemail.com, Litmus and Return Path, to name a few, it's a wonder that things like this from Wotif can still make it through to my Inbox.

Clearly someone hasn't bothered to take a look at this in Gmail and see that it's all over the place.  A quick look points to the fact that someone wacked in a extra vertical blue border to the right of the banner which has blown everything else out.

Using one of the tools above would have identified this very quickly and not made the Wotif people look silly.

To test or not to test?  Is that really a question?

email newsletter basics

It's a bit general but this guide by Smashing Magazine on email newsletter design is pretty comprehensive.  I particularly like the section to do with data collection.  It's definitely one area that most marketers fall over on.

Being Smashing, the main crux of it is very design focussed.  It's a good read regardless.

enjoy