Adventures in digital marketing

eBay Sneak Peak

Ebay have undertaken a lot of user interface design changes that are introduced on this sneak peak page. The great thing is that the 15 changes here add up to something approaching a complete overhaul of the user experience. These changes include easier selling, one-click purchasing and an easier checkout amongst other changes that are sure to delight old and new users.

eBay promises, we will soon be able to list items on eBay using just one page form:

Very soon - if you want to - you'll be able to list with a one-page form, needing only to fill in the fields associated with the most common options. We pre-fill many fields for you (such as setting your auction starting price at $0.99), but if you don't like the way we fill in the blanks, you can easily change them.

eBay Neighborhoods is a social network that lets passionate collectors post photos, write reviews and discuss topics with other passionate users. eBay has been working hard to boost growth in active members and get active users to spend more time on eBay rather than Facebook. This way they hope to reverse a decline in the number of items listed for sale. The company believes that adding these new buyer-friendly features will help improve the shopping experience on its site.

Neighborhoods is is just one of a number of smart changes that have been introduced. The site now has a revamped home page, new desktop software, one-click bidding and a streamlined checkout process along with lots of other fun new introductions. One of my favorites is the option to view items in a search results page as images. the filtering  and refining is presented in a really smart and usable way here.

Joost relaunch

Joost is a video on-demand service with over 15,000 TV shows and over 250 different TV channels. It is now open to the general public. I worked on the new IA & design (for Digitas London) and think it looks really great. Joost already has a million plus downloads, and with a snazzy new video player and user interface, it is well worth checking out.

Jonathan

Dove Onslaught

This new Dove ad from Ogilvy Canada is the follow up to the very successful evolution ad - winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes. I think it manages to follow up a very difficult first act by hitting hard. It has lots of shocking plastic surgery images as well as disturbing of binging and purging. The campaign is to support the Dove self-esteem fund. The tag line "Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does". is a nice dialogue opener. The casting and execution here are just perfect.

The atmospheric music is by a UK band called Simian, now known as Simian Mobile Disco.

Jon

FOWA Expo London

Tomorrow (Wednesday) and Thursday I'll be attending the FOWA Conference and Expo in London's Excel conference behemoth, out in that there docklands.

As with the last FOWA i'll be making notes of all the sessions I attend and blogging about them as soon as I can (maybe even live if they sort out the free wifi this time!)

It looks like an incredibly interesting series of events and talks from a lot of leading edge people in the industry. Good stuff!

If you're interested in hooking up for a coffee and a chat about the future of web apps and how it might affect digital advertising and marketing let me know!

Howard
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UPS do a widget

UPS, the global logistics and shipping company, are running a campaign in print (tube posters) to promote their new tracking widget.

The campaign features a cute cartoon character, imaginatively called "Widget" who sits on your desktop and helps you track your orders.

Whilst I am extremely happy to see another large company launch a widget campaign, it worries me that they opt to do it for PC only.  Hence, I can't tell you what it does because I am a Mac fanboy.

Why would you not do it for Mac as well?  If you opted for the Yahoo! widget engine, or even doing it natively in dashboard as well as for windows, you'd cover off a lot more bases with your audience.

A+ for launching a widget guys.

C- for not doing it in a logical multi-platform manner.

Howard
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