JC Penney brings fashion to e-commerce video with Spring Runway Show
JC Penney is bringing fashion video shopping to the small screen with its Spring Runway Show. In the show, models walk down a catwalk while the price of a product displays in a custom Flash applet. As the model turns at the end of the catwalk, an ‘in-player’ button appears, encouraging users to click for additional product details. When the button is clicked, a second ‘details and buy’ button appears, linked to the product page, along with options to share the video to social networks and via email (neither of which seemed to work for me – as the Facebook option only linked to JC Penney’s Facebook photo album instead of prompting the user to post to their profile, while the email option appeared non-functional).
Each model sports a coordinated outfit, offering JC Penney an opportunity to cross-sell items, including high-margin accessories like sunglasses. However, the cross-sell opportunity did seem to get a bit lost in the face of the bolder calls to action driving shoppers to the product page (which makes sense). The Flash applet allows a user to skip from model to model via a custom top nav which separates outfits by their theme. Or, shoppers can just sit back and relax while one model struts her stuff and vanishes before the next one appears.
In all, I like the idea of the catwalk video to showcase apparel. The format provides a natural way for apparel retailers to show the fit and feel of clothes on real people (well, people that look better than you or I do, but I guess that’s the point 
. The catwalk format also provides an opportunity to showcase many outfits in quick succession, which can lower production costs (in theory, though not always in practice) and the format encourages interactivity, provokes curiosity, and also provides a vehicle to engage shoppers with longer form content, always a challenge in e-commerce. Downfalls of this model include much higher production costs than simpler, though perhaps less produced content (for example, paying models, renting space, building a set that HAS to look good), dealing with professional lighting, and more nuanced/complex post-production work).
Emporio Armani implemented a similar concept, with the notable difference that viewers could actually click on models as they walked down the runway. However, Armani missed opportunities to encourage sharing of videos over social networks, and the interactive implementation was also a bit kludgey – for example when clicking on a pair of slacks, an option to browse jackets appeared. On other models, not all of the items even appeared navigable while other models didn’t allow any interactivity at all, leaving one to wonder if the items were even for sale. This created a confusing, if novel, user experience. Still, it’s clear that the trend in video overall is toward interactivity. Still up for debate is whether consumers yet understand the concept of ‘lean in’ interactive video, or whether interactivity needs to be prompted via clear calls to action, such as through hyperlink or image overlays as in the JC Penney example. I suspect that for now, consumers feel more at home with JC Penney type implementations, as most consumers don’t yet “expect” interactive video content.
Another challenge faced by both merchants is the heavy weight of the interactive Flash applications. Both shows took over 10 seconds to load on a high speed connection. Retailers serious about implementing video on site for the most part seek both richness of presentation and speed – finding the right balance is key. The need for fast page load times at the product level and the impact on sales has been well documented by players in the CDN industry for some time, so merchants seeking richer experiences need to continue focusing on pushing the boundaries of interactivity while watching conversion funnels closely to assess where users are dropping out of the purchase path.
What do you think? Do you agree with my assessment or not? Comment below, and Happy Selling!
