Burberry’s launched a new Content and Community site called Art of the Trench recently and I think it is another great example of Brands leveraging Content and Community to create compelling brand experiences online. Adding Content and Community features or whole concept sites is a recurring theme among Brands with whom we work. Most are still viewing these as siloed experiences and not thinking about creating a fully converged experience for their clientèle. Let’s take a deeper dive into the decisions Burberry made.
What is great:
- Compelling visual experience of the photo wall carousel
- User generated content to upload photos of product in use in the real world
- Community ratings and reviews neatly integrated in at the individual photo level
- Visual filtering to narrow down products into a consideration set
What could be improved:
- Photos are not linked to product names, so no product description is associated with the photo. If I want to buy it, I don’t even know what to ask for. Users should be asked to input the product name during the image upload process to associate product information.
- No ability to add item to cart from photo. Once the product association is made, users should be able to add to cart directly from the photo
- No zoom on the image – makes it hard to determine product details
- If the product is no longer sold on Burberry.com, a search could be generated for eBay or other source of vintage clothing
- Recommendations could be made of new items I would likely be interested in based on previous purchases and uploaded images
- SEO could be improved by adding keywords and text that lives outside of Flash
Overall a great site that has even more upside potential. What do you think? What should Burberry do next with Art of the Trench?
