From: Saks Fifth Avenue
Subject Line: Watch Fashion in Action
Date: Saturday, April 5, 2008

The email's a snore, but Saks' Video Catalog is MAGIC! This is the most practical and useful marriage of video and commerce I've seen yet. It's fantastic to be able to watch the way a garment moves and falls on a figure; it gives us one more reason to shop online instead of making a real-life retail store stop. Check it out >

P.S. After browsing the Video Catalog, don't you just hate how much BETTER this email could have been!?!?

Posted by lfharmon at 09:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From: J.Crew
Subject Line: The well-traveled tote (see video)
Date: Wednesday, February 13, 2008

From: Louis Vuitton
Subject Line: The first Louis Vuitton movie : Travel and Emotions
Date: Monday, February 18, 2008

While it is still logistically impossible to embed actual videos into email messages, we have found that including links to videos noticeably increases clickthrough. Here, I like how J.Crew and Louis Vuitton extend that idea to the subject line, presumably hoping to up open rates as well. I recommend this; it's definitely worth testing. I also recommend including strong visual cues to indicate links to video; recipients respond best to obvious treatments like play buttons and frame treatments that look like Windows Media and Quicktime players. Both J.Crew and Louis Vuitton could have added more visual flair to draw attention the video factor here. (Video: so hot right now.)

Posted by lfharmon at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)