Customer Preference – Phyllis Fang

Uniqlo plays with Superbowl word play

Who: Uniqlo, the infamous Japanese brand of simple, casual basics.
What’s Working: Their “Living 9 to 9” is a timely, pun-ny play on Squarespace’s “Working 5 to 9” Superbowl commercial from this past weekend (which itself was a play on Dolly Parton’s “Working 9 to 5” song). Not a bad idea, considering 96 million sets of eyeballs watch the Superbowl and its ads every year.
What’s Not: Way too much content and you get lost in the scroll. (this isn’t even the full email!) They definitely could have tightened the products featured in each “time slot’s”, or better yet, set up customer preferences (Everlane does a great job at this) and just share Men’s vs. Women’s items.

Huckberry remains relevant

Automation, Customer Preference, Unsubscribe

Who: Huckberry, a curated outdoor retailer, inspirational guide and lookbook to enable your more adventurous, stylish self. Or as they describe themselves “Gear for today. Inspiration for tomorrow.”
What’s Working: Subject line is a simple “Want to keep hearing from us? This is a personalized reengagement trigger that:
1. knows you haven’t been opening in awhile
2. wants to give you other options for keeping them around and
3. reminds you that while you may have only stumbled on their brand in order to buy that fancy, collapsible water filter, they can serve up travel inspo & tips for your next backpacking trip in the Sierras …so stay you should stay subscribed.
What’s Not: “adding value to your inbox” sounds like it was lifted straight from a marketing brief. Is that how marketers talk? Yes. Is that how consumers think of their inboxes though? Likely not.

The Local Slips Up

Apology, Customer Preference

The Local-mistake.png

Who: The Local, a content rich site focused on delivering European news to North American audiences, slips up and send a French campaign to an Italian subscriber
What’s Working: Straightforward copy that recognized the issue, acknowledged it head on, presented a solution (settings update) and then pivoted seamlessly to intro the breadth and variety of all their content.
What’s Not: Plain text design that is hyped up on hyperlinks.

Bonobos Wants To Know Your Size

Customer Preference, Promotion

Who: Bonobos, an e-commerce (mostly) menswear start-up founded in NYC and recently acquired by Walmart.
What’s Working: Customer preference data in a natural, frictionless method, built directly in email.
What’s Not: Would’ve been great to see a size guide or some kind of reference guide alongside the size picker, especially given their “Perfect Fit Starts Here” tagline.