Web watch MMHK June

Jonathan Wong, head of product development

TVB.com

HOT *****

www.uniqlo.jp/uniqlock

Beyond doubt, Japan is one country that has made great products and great marketing. Although its ideas may not be original, Japan often make things in a better presentation and targets its customers and audience in better ways. I am one of those who admires Japanese brands and products such as Uniqlo, a giant in casual fashion industry. Uniqlo has been very active in online marketing for the past few years. This time, they make use of advanced online technology to create a campaign "Music, Dance, Clock" for its new series of colorful t-shirts.  It's amazing, they choose the best formats on the web to create a big noise. There's clock-ticking music with tons of videos of cute dancing girls in time-sensitive themes to make you get addicted to watch them from time to time.  In addition, they provide "blog parts" which make you put such add-ons on users' blogs to keep everyone checking those cute girls and spread it around the online community. The campaign makes great use of YouTube's platform to recruit hundreds of female dancers who want to be part of their models. Right branding, presentation (interface, music and videos), technology and cultural interests all make this online campaign a real success. Hontoni Sugoi (means really great in English)!

NOT *

www.viewtyfulworld.com

LG launched a campaign called "Viewtyfulworld" to promote its mobile phone "Viewty".  Viewty's main feature is its camera which this campaign aims at. The site offers a platform for users to share photos - which is not a new thing on internet. As you may know, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung had already made a very similar online marketing in the past. Apart from this not being a new idea, the LG Viewtyfulworld shows nothing interesting to me. Its interface looks dull and boring. Moreover, I do not see any information of this mobile phone's "mobile function" beyond the camera features.  Do we really want a mobile phone or a camera with calling function? At last, not to mention that I got my IE 7 browser on Windows Vista crashed by this mini-site few times.  How can we promote our products and services when users are unable to access to it?  It's the worst experience ever, especially on user-driven online space.