From: Bag Borrow or Steal
Subject Line: Love The Devil Wears Prada? Borrow the Earrings!
Date: Thursday, April 19, 2007

In a woman's world, you are your handbag, and status bags are pricey. Enter Bag Borrow or Steal. It's a brilliant concept: they basically rent you accessories you can't otherwise afford. With gals everywhere laying out weeks of salary for the right hobo, I can see this concept being huge.

I think they generally do a good job with their email creative, but I'd like to point out a few things they could do to optimize their campaigns, from top to bottom:

1) Go a little larger with the logo. Since it's such a delicate script font, it's somewhat tricky to read at this size. Granted my eyes are going from too much screentime, but I do have my glasses on.

2) Try bringing the menu items up into the brown tint bar, on the upper-right. This will help separate them out from the main message, as well as conserve vertical real estate.

3) Render body copy in HTML rather than graphical text so it's legible in email browsers with images disabled by default.

4) Cut linked graphics separately rather than using image maps. Several email browser strip image maps, thereby preventing users from clicking through!

5) Add a little humor. There's definitely a "wink-wink/nudge-nudge" element to accessories rental. "It's our little secret." I say play that up and have some fun with it!