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!

This blog is designed to complement the blogging efforts already underway at the Video Commerce Consortium, which maintains a research/best practices/trends focus on video commerce and facilitates an industry discussion group, and VideoRetailer.org, which maintains more of a focus on the video commerce industry and its players.  As opposed to the themes of those blogs, CommerceVideos.com will instead focus more on actual implementations of e-commerce video by leading online retailers.    The idea behind this blog is to offer readers commentary and analysis focused on retail video, and also to help ’spread the gospel’ of e-commerce video by covering retail video implementations folks otherwise might not know about.  If you are an online retailer, and are interested in having us cover a specific video project you or your company has deployed, drop me a line at justin [a t] video-commerce [d o t] org.  I try to return all email within 24 hours but due to the volume of mail I receive it might sometimes take a little longer.

I’m Justin Foster,  the founding blogger on CommerceVideos.com.  I’m also the founder of the nonprofit Video Commerce Consortium and co-founder of the for-profit video commerce technology startup Liveclicker, Inc. While I do maintain for-profit interests, this blog is designed to promote general understanding of video in e-commerce and not just my narrow interests.  With that in mind, I’d like to make a call for bloggers to join me in helping to make CommerceVideos.com a thriving blog dedicated to covering online retail video.  If you’re interested in joining me as a founding blogger, send me an email at justin [a t] video-commerce [d o t] org and we’ll discuss.

Until next time…

Happy Selling!