Flash Video Promotion Done Right

Flash Video Promotion Done Right

John Deere has done an absolutely fantastic job of using a combination of Flash and video to promote their residential lawn tractors. Let's see what we can learn!

http://www.deere.com/en_US/homeowners/index.html?promo=deere.com

The first thing that caused me to say, "Oh, interesting," wasn't the use of flash, nor a well-placed use of salespeople in the interactive video. The first thing I noted was the usability in their navigation. I clicked on the far-right tractor and didn't have to move my mouse again to view each of the three lawn tractors. John Deere cleverly moved the next tractor right under my mouse so all I had to do was click to view that tractor. "Wow," I thought, "they were really thinking of the user when they created this."

Other items to note:

• Limited Selection of products. They didn't display their entire product inventory. They only picked 3 tractors, which helps bring focus to the presentation and to the people watching.
• Great Use of Interactive Video to give a personal touch:
  • The people chosen as "spokespersons" showed good audience ethnic and gender diversity
  • Graphical Flash elements interacted well with what the person was saying
  • Each person was short and to the point (no one likes a salesman who talks too much!)
  • Each video gave a clear verbal call to action for what the user should do next at the end of each presentation, "Check out the 2520 now"
• The User is in Control with appropriate options to:
  • Mute the sound
  • Go back in the flash presentation
  • Skip the intro
  • Hide or show the menu
  • Let the user rotate the view 360 to where they want it
• Broad install of Flash. The presentation works equally well in Flash 7 or 8.
• Other Navigation Options for those that may not have Flash were available in other places on the page. Their primary navigation was NOT built in flash.� This is good for accessibility and for those important search engine spiders.

There were a few things that were a bit distracting:

• The way the various couples moved back and forth very unnaturally
• Odd seashore music in the background did not add to, but distracted from, the presentation

If your organization or ministry is looking at taking advantage of the growing number of people who have broadband and expect high-quality video and Flash presentations, John Deere's little application is a great example of things to learn from.

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