experience matters

Revisions 2/10: The orginal post went up on Monday, but had a dialogue with Christine Champagne, freelance journalist/media critic who has written for publications such as OMMA, Adweek, Variety and Time Out New York. 

She shared some of her thought-leadership, by saying, “I’m all for trying new things, but HoneyShed got a lot of things wrong, and this project appeared doomed from the beta stage. What it all boils down to is that HoneyShed tried really hard to be cool, and it just wasn’t cool. For all I know, a bunch of 20-year-olds produced this site. But judging by the throwback look and style and the, uh, “sexy” videos, I got the sense that HoneyShed was created by a bunch of guys in their thirties and forties who think they are hip because they work in advertising and make a shitload of money but are way out of touch with what the kids are into these days.” Thanks for your time. We look forward to reading more of your work!

Original Post:

Despite my criticisms, I really wish they would have pulled it off. I was hoping for an online shopping experience that broke the mold. This post is no where near breaking the story about Honeyshed shutting down, but I wanted to post a few thoughts about how they could have made it work.

• The Honeyshed target wants a portable experience where they are, not another chat room with video to buy random stuff.  Sites like QVC and Amazon have mastered online purchase behavior, and they didn’t bother to take any of their learnings. Bummer. Going after this target, they could have tested the limits of mobile, in-game environments, blogs and social networks. Investing the technology to secure portable ecomm apps would have been wise.
• There wasn’t a blue ocean strategy behind this initiative. Another shopping site for basic commodities? Been there. Done that.  Offering make-up and sneakers and a car didn’t help the cause.  This could have one-upped BudTV, if Puma made it their exclusive shopping cart.
• Let’s chat about the hosts.. They are selling make-up to me, yet appear to be ‘putting on a show’ for the fellas.  If they don’t train the sellers, they should have offered live streaming video, so consumers like me could ask specifics about the product. They could have subservient chicken with the rest of the target audience – within reason, of course.
• David Title, director of new media at Crossroads Films made a great point in an OMMA article we were both recently featured in. He said “… why would I sit through a two-minute ad?” It’s definitely missing the cool factor. Why not master the basics like hot-spotting video? Or one up the “stash” send-to-a-friend feature by trying on the merchandise and asking who likes it? Start exclusive community auctions and let group members bid on the products to get the newest products at the lowest price. The more bids consumers win, the more access they get to exclusive and discounted products.

No liquid gold this time around. The main takeaway: No matter what your brand – you have to listen to your consumers.