• by Christine Champagne , October 26, 2006

A Cool New Site — Maybe Too Cool

By Christine Champagne

Prior to conceptualizing the Web site to promote the latest version of the T-Mobile Sidekick, the Sidekick 3, Publicis West conducted research among the device’s hip young devotees — Paris Hilton doesn’t go anywhere without hers, you know — to find out why the Sidekick is such an indispensable digital accessory.

What did the agency learn? Consumers view the Sidekick — which, in addition to being a phone, enables instant messaging and Web-surfing, the ability to access MP3 files, and picture-taking — “as their social lifeline and an instigator of spontaneous fun,” according to David Kim, Publicis West’s interactive creative director.

With that in mind, the agency worked with Web site developer The Barbarian Group and design collective I Love Dust to create a Sidekick 3 microsite (accessible via T-mobile.com or directly at Sidekick3.com) and offered visitors the ability to participate in a block party of sorts, complete with product demonstrations and games.

But is this a party people will be dying to crash? OMMA gathered a panel of digital creatives composed of Digitas’ Lincoln Bjorkman, OgilvyOne’s Greg Kaplan, and Bob Conquest of Moxie Interactive, the digital division of ZenithMedia USA, to get their take. (Assuming she would be booked, we didn’t invite Paris Hilton.)

Sitting in a SoHo coffee shop, we got the party started, perusing the animated, urban-set site on a laptop. The initial image one sees is that of a hipster girl toting two turntables down a city street. A cool dude sitting nearby sorts through his record collection.

OMMA: What’s your first impression?

Conquest: Definitely youthful.

Bjorkman: The graffiti art look is nice.

Kaplan: Yeah, the artwork is really pretty.  Conquest maneuvers the mouse.

Conquest: I’m just going to explore. It’s not hinting if something is clickable or not.

Suddenly a Sidekick 3, with two hands clutching it, pops up and launches into a demo on its ability to play MP3s.

Kaplan: The Sidekick popped up automatically?

Conquest: When I clicked on the girl.

OMMA: Throughout the site, the Sidekick 3 appears on the screen after you click on various people or objects.

Bjorkman: I find that incongruous. Instead of having the Sidekick as part of the environment or even rendered within it, it literally comes up and blocks out everything behind it. You’re taking me away from all that luscious detail and lovely design to take me into a demo that is pretty straightforward.

Kaplan: I agree it would have been better if [the Sidekick] were integrated into the aesthetics they set up with this illustrated style.  We scroll through the environment.

Kaplan: Is there stuff in this environment that is hot and actionable? You have to work for that a little too hard.

Bjorkman: It’s a very challenging interface — not as fluid as you would hope.

Conquest: The Sidekick is all about community. Are there any community-based aspects to this site?

OMMA: There is a link below that you can click on to find out about Sidekick-sponsored events.

Conquest: It almost feels like a game environment…

Bjorkman: But there isn’t a good game.

OMMA: See those hippos peeking out from under the manhole covers? You can click on those and play a Whack A Mole-style game. Would you find it tied to community if you could play a game with others?

Conquest: Yes, that would be good. I’m not sure I feel like I’m interacting with the brand. I feel like I’m interacting with this cool environment. You can call up the Sidekick [for the demos], but in this whole environment, I don’t see one person holding a Sidekick.

Bjorkman: You don’t get a sense that the people in this world they’ve gone to such great pains to create are actively using the Sidekick to further this lifestyle. Why isn’t the Sidekick an integral part of the space?

OMMA: At the end of the experience there’s a block of copy promoting I Love Dust, which did the illustration, and a link to I Love Dust’s site. How do you feel about that?

Conquest: I’ve never seen a client allow any other product or company to promote themselves within their environment — the client paid for this.

Bjorkman: I love that they’re willing to let you go — that seems very real.

OMMA: Let’s sum up the site’s strengths and weaknesses.

Bjorkman: I love the look of it. It has a very strong point of view and that took me to a great place. Then I kept waiting for an engagement model and a navigation system that made some sense for me, and that’s where it started to fall short.

Conquest: I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, and I had to go figure that out on my own, which was fine. But it’s really demanding. People all have ADD now. They don’t have time to figure things out.

Kaplan: You want to know what the objectives of the site are, and you don’t get any of that. If you’re looking to find out about the Sidekick, the demos don’t give you enough to justify taking you out of this experience.