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I think you need to take your mind out of the gutter right this second my friend. Blow it loud, blow it proud is the latest tag line for Kleenex Tissues. The first round of commercials had people pouring their hearts out to a total stranger on a couch in the middle of a busy sidewalk. Yea, that’s happened to me.
And now the most recent commercial has people on those very same couches, but this time instead of talking and crying, they are blowing their noses. I am not kidding, if you have not seen this, it is 30 seconds of people blowing their noses. Yum! I wish I could post it for you, but I have been searching online and have not been able to find a copy. If you happen to find a copy, send me the link in the comments.
I originally thought this post was going to be about the blowing your nose commercial, but as I searched for the commercial online, I decided to change the subject of this post. The first place I went to look for this video was on the Kleenex web site itself. When I arrived at the site, one question popped into my mind, “Who the hell created this site?”
For a consumer company like Kleenex to put a web site together like this is irresponsible to say the least and embarrassing to say the best. Let’s quickly go over my issues with this site:
1. By my count, there are three animated images on the home page. Could we have a couple more and then I can pretend we are back in 1999? Kleenex, what do you want me to do on this site? What is the goal of the site? Choose what it is and make that stand out.
2. There is absolutely no copy on the home page. The text are images. Why is that a problem? If you do a search in Google for Kleenex you will see the result below. “Facial Tissue products, expressions graphics, customer service, FAQs, product history and Kimberly-Clark Corporation links.” Wow, that is some description there. Since no-one bothered to put a title tag on the page and the whole page are images, Google had to use the bottom navigation bar as it’s description. Can you say enticing?
3. Look at the top of your browser and the name of this page is “Home Page”. Wow, thanks captain obvious. Does anyone outside of people who developed the site need to know that this is called the home page? What does that do for the users?
4. Since Kleenex chose to make the home page all images, it is a little bit on the fat side. Based on a couple of load testers I ran, on a cable modem or DSL, the page takes 2 to 2 1/2 seconds to load. Think of how long that would be if a consumer was on a 56K modem which is not out of the realm of actually happening.
I think this is yet another example of a corporation and it’s marketing company putting all their time and money into TV commercials and not concerning themselves with what happens after those 3o seconds are over.
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In all fairness, if you’re on a 56k modem, you should save your money and buy a 12-pack of tissue boxes from Sam’s Club. Then invest in the DSL. Only then can you move on up to the East side with a tissue as fine as Kleenex.
It’s a process, Cord. “First you get the money. Then you get the power. Then you get the Kleenex.”
In all seriousness, I agree with your design assessment 100%. Not only is it too busy, I have no idea what the call to action is.
Fortunately (for us) or unfortunately (for consumers) most packaged goods manufacturers do a piss-poor job of captivating the user and developing a relationship with them on their site. Either the site has no point, or it can’t be indexed. And occasionally, both.
I like your design assessment - it’s accurate from my point of view. We have the same problem with our website as far as suggesting what visitors should be doing, but we have a slightly better excuse - we’re in Beta and don’t have access to the resources Kleenex does.
Interestingly, this ties into your SEO discussion below. I’m aware of the importance of Meta tags disappearing, but they would help with the description results you found in Google.
What drew my attention was the word Participate once I got into the site. I clicked on it and it took me to a page for registering. For what? And why do I want to participate? This, to me, is an example of an out-of -touch marketing department hearing the buzz concept of consumer participation on the Internet and trying to leverage it (poorly).
I suppose it’s because I’m not a big fan of people using buzz terms without any idea of what it really means. Viral marketing is a good example of that.
Clay, you are right, Kleenex absolutely should of added at the very least a title tag on these pages.
Going back to what Jeremy commented on, it is such a shame that some of these larger companies and great brand names can’t take advantage of the money they have to spend and truly market well online. Oh well.
I swear, I think you and I share a brain or something. I was going to post something about this site awhile back, but eventually thought that it was too far outside my parameters. I couldn’t agree with you more, Cord. It’s like someone in a marketing meeting said, “Hey, lets make Kleenex a social networking site except not really put too much time and effort into it because this is all a fad and we just want to capitalize on the hype while it exists and then change it later.”