From: dELiA*s
Subject Line: Save $10! Swim Sale online only
Date: Saturday, February 18, 2006

From: gap.com
Subject Line: Find Your Perfect Swimsuit
Date: Monday, February 20, 2006

We've got yet another campaign "double" today - dELiA*s and gap.com sent out strikingly similar swimwear messages. Check out that photography! Those layouts! Kind of creepy.

The obvious opening comment is "ouch!" - gap.com's HTML broke in my email browser, thereby breaking the illusion of their overall message. This is the worst browser break I've seen in a long time. How embarassing!

If we can "see beyond the break", however, gap.com's execution is more successful because the message is deeper and more focused. It's all about the swimfinder and it's many uses; just by reading the links we start to think about finding our suit and are compelled to click through. In the case dELiA*s, even though we've got a sale and a free shipping offer, the triple-combo of sale, free ship and mix & match swimwear dilutes any one message and does not pull us into the process the same way gap.com does. Plus, after all, "buy 2, save $10!" isn't really that great of a deal.