MindComet

Urban Outfitters Has A Knack For Animated Gifs

The image above makes up the majority of an email I just received from those trendy folks at Urban Outfitters. (View the entire email here) I must say, I am quite impressed by their creative use of animated gifs here. It pulled me right in and got me clicking through in an instant. The revolving wardrobe is just dead-on in terms of tone and persuasion.

Urban Outfitters knows how to catch their subscribers’ collective eyes with animated gifs such as these. If you’ve been paying attention to this blog for a while, you may remember this post, where Urban’s use of an animated gif was almost too much, but definitely left an impression on me. This email is no different. I wish more companies would incorporate cool animated gifs like this more often.

What do you think? Is this a great use of animated gifs or what? Do you have any examples of successful campaigns with animated gifs? Post ‘em below.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Apr. 20, 2011

NHL Network Scores Big With Animated JPGs

As a means to promote their Stanley Cup coverage between the Blackhawks and Flyers, the NHL Network sent this beaut, leveraging one of the best animated GIFs JPGs I’ve seen in a long time.

Check out the whole email here

The only flaw to incorporating an animated GIF JPG this compelling is it’s size. The image is a whopping 6.3 MB. It includes roughly 90+ frames and runs for a little over 15 seconds, so it’s no wonder the file is so large. This may have caused huge deliverability issues in the long run, but it really all depends on their reputation with the major ISPs. Considering NHL’s size and overall output when it comes to email marketing, I’m sure they’re in good standing with most of the major providers.

Another thing to consider are mobile users. This email has a link specifically for mobile users (merely a text version of the same email), but most smartphone users still receive HTML messages by default. Most of these users are likely using their provider’s network and not WiFi. When forwarded this to my iPhone, I viewed it using the 3G network with a good signal and it took a little over one minute for the image to start animating. Maybe if the NHL cut back on the image’s length and ultimately it’s file size (at the same time being just as eye-catching), it would’ve been more effective for your average smartphone user.

So, if animated images are appealing to you and your marketing campaign, there are a few programs that will easily turn any video into an animated image—ideal for email:

SnagIt Video Capture

Debabelizer Pro

Find more information on video-to-image for email at Style Campaign’s blog.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on May. 28, 2010

My Eyes Hurt

I received this sales email from Urban Outfitters today, and I must say… this is the LOUDEST email I’ve ever received.  Which basically means it makes for great use of an animated gif with the alternating background colors.  And if by “great use” you mean attention-grabbing, then yes, it was used well. But the email is hard to look at for more than two seconds. After a couple seconds, my eyes literally started to get sore. So what do you think is better? Grabbing someone’s attention to look and scan your email only to have them shy away? Or is is better for someone to casually glance at your message in hopes that they may click through?

See the Urban Outfitters email below:

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Jun. 08, 2009