Refreshing! A pure luxury!
We rarely come across ‘Fashion’ brand websites that do not require you to click at least 5-6 times to get to the final destination page. And getting more in exchange of doing less and getting it in just 1-2 clicks online today is certainly a luxury. Hermès made an effort to identify and reflect the ‘less is more’ and ‘online user behavior insights’ in their recent ‘Défilé’ Autumn-Winter 2014 collection microsite.
The landing page loads with a video starting in the background and showing a thin designer strip which upon hovering over shows a thumbnail of the outfit worn by the next model. You can click on it and skip the other episodes and watch the cat-walk you like. This is the simple and basic part.
What is best about this is if you notice the ‘Instagram’ icon on the top right. It shows a stream of Instagram images – displaying the time it was taken and the number of likes it received. Clicking on the image will open the ‘Instagram’ account in a new window and does not take open it in the same window. Many brands ignore these small details that can greatly enhance a desired user experience.
The site is available in obviously two languages – English and French and also shares Call-to-action to visit the main Hermès.com website and also share the experience online via Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The Social Share copies and images are also optimized relating to the content shown on the website.
Many brands ignore these tiny details which are in fact the online face of the brand when they get out of their own platform and enter the ‘Social Playground’. It is always refreshing and nice to see for a huge digital marketing fan like me that there are Marketing and UX teams out there who think through and take the pains to get all these details right. Least I can do is take out time to appreciate such work and share the experience and appreciation.
While we are at it, check out their Tumblr and Pinterest pages as well for inspiration. Tumblr page header animation shows even a highly regarded luxury brand like Hermès can have some fun in a subtle way.
Digital Force - The force is strong with this one... 