Web Watch - Apr08

HOT

Ikea Bedrooms

This campaign site showcases Ikea bedrooms. The tagline for the campaign is ‘You Need a Quiet Space'. What I like about it is how it effectively portrays the simple joys of having a nice resting space amidst dealing with life's different challenges from managing a crying baby to getting the groceries or dealing with a traffic jam. The theme comes through with the bedroom becoming a haven for rest, romance and glamour. The site nicely meshes sight, sound and motion together with little touches allowing maximum exposure of the products, for example you can change the angle from which you view the bedroom. I do wish though that the site could load faster and they could have also done up a customised catalog of the products featured. Currently all product links go back to the main Ikea site which breaks up the relaxed mood built up through the campaign site.

Rating: 4/5

NOT

Leica Camera

This site seeks to capture the classic romance behind the Leica brand. Through lounge and classical music, sleek and intense personas and a mysterious background, it brings the user to another time. However if this site is meant to help Leica gain new enthusiasts in this age of hyper-technology, it does not work for me. The mood created by the music and pictures could also be misconstrued as maudlin, still and stuck in the past. The current campaign, focusing on "one and a half love stories" offers the user a choice of seeing the stories from the perspective of different characters. But without building up a background of each of the characters and their connections to each other, the use of pictures and video becomes disjoint and uninteresting. What is missing is the message of how Leica while maintaining its roots, is also a forerunner in terms of camera technology.

Rating: 2/5

Earl Trevor Allan

Managing Director

Earth9.com