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Pop Quiz: Are We Having Fun Yet?
December 13, 2007
The willingness of people to take quizzes online is one of the minor puzzles of our time. Didn’t we spend years in school dreading tests, only to turn around and take them for fun? Of course, it helps that these aren’t usually the kind you can fail – they just sort us into categories that confirm what we already know about ourselves. Kind of like taking an old school Cosmo quiz with your girlfriends, only you don’t have to do your own scoring and you get a pretty picture or tagline to share at the end. The only flaw is that they usually don’t, you know, do much of anything.
So today’s clever retail idea is All I Want for Christmas, which ties the Visual DNA test you may already have played around with into concrete gift suggestions. It’s fun and productive, and instead of playing catch-up with the offline shopping experience, it plays to online’s complementary strengths. (Giftfinder also has a Facebook application).
Is there a quiz your customers could take that would help them find their style – or their gift recipients’ -- and suggest products to match? Could they play a game of skill to win a little something extra, or customize a product and see their choices appear in real time? “Retail-tainment” works online as well as off, especially in creating that elusive word-of-mouse.
Speaking of which, honorable mention to the genius behind Will It Blend: a blender company trying all sorts of unlikely stuff in their product and posting the online video (and taking suggestions for more, along with suggesting some it is safe to try at home). People voluntarily seek out what are essentially ads because they are just that cool. Is there something wacky-yet-logical you could do with your brand? Like NORAD tracking Santa or PNC computing the cost of the Twelve Days of Christmas, it should be something fun, with no hard sell, that makes intuitive sense with what you do best. — Meredith Schwartz
Posted by Virtual Merchant Today on December 13, 2007 | Comments (0)
