The Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing
campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my
inbox this morning:
Nike Store, 10/4 — Welcome
to the All-New Nike.com
In announcing the relaunch of their website, Nike has
redesigned their email template, going with a super clean, almost minimalist
design that’s clearly aimed at mobile readers. The new design is a narrow 550
pixels wide, down from 690 pixels wide previously (including a fixed 40 pixel
left-hand gutter). They jettison the Nike Store name from the logo and go with
just the swoosh. They also ditch the navigation bar, which is perhaps a bad
move considering they don’t have any kind of recovery module either. The
administration links at the bottom of the email have also been consolidated and
reduced. Besides the reduced number of paths out of the email, my other concern
is the excessive use of white space and the negative impact that has on
readability when scaled down for smartphones. It’s the same concern I had with
an Abercrombie & Fitch email a while back (see Aug.
4, 2011 AM Inbox). White space is a good thing, but on small screens
large, easy-to-read type is also. The balance seems off here to me.
Here’s the new design (left) and the previous design from a
Sept. 28 email:
SUBJECTIVITY
SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Art.com, 10/4 — Up to 30% off + American Icons: Who's got
your vote?
Sears, 10/4 — Start today! Discover Columbus Day deals on
mattresses, coats, tools & more!
Barnes & Noble, 10/4 — Special Café Offer & More
This Columbus Day!
The Children’s Place, 10/4 — Up to 75% Off - Columbus Day
Event!
Oriental Trading, 10/4 — Plan your Halloween party - get
free shipping!
_____________________
BROWSE...
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3 comments:
There'a a chance that the comparison between these two emails is not quite fair on Nike: the old email in the example is a newsletter type email about multiple products and the new email is more of a single call to action, promoting just one thing.
We'll have to wait an see if the new actual newsletter is as minimalistic.
My immediate guess is that it won't change at all.
Andy, it is tricky sometimes to compare the first email on a new template to the old design, in part because of testing and tweaking. In this case, yes, this first email was more minimalist than emails that I've seen from them since. They brought back the navigation bar, which I think is wise, and they also have some secondary messaging, although it is less than before. All in all, the new design is still considerably more minimalistic than the previous design, but they did bring back some of the elements.
Cool, Cheers Chad!
I do agree that while having less content could reduce clutter on a mobile, it necessarily make is more optimised. All one has to do is send it to an iPhone to see the problems, like the text being too small after the inbox zoomed out to the width of the hero image.
Thanks again, Andy
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