The team at Attention Shoppers! has finally visited the latest offering from the slap-happy inhabitants of Cokeland (we know we’re late to the happiness party, but we had laundry to sort).
Well, this version of “The Happiness Factory” is certainly a piece of work. You might even call it a piece of art work (commercial art, but art nonetheless). The animation is stunning. The story in the movie you’ll find on the site is charming. The games are first rate. But the site is really, r e a l l y , s l o w.
I know that we often have to make creative and technological choices when it comes to delivering consumers an awesome experience while watching those pesky load times. But this site took FOREVER to load. And the “movie” gave me one of those stop-and-start performances that drive one nuts (on subsequent visits the movie played smoothly, but there was still a rather long wait between sections of the site).
Of course, it might just be that a bunch of folks were hitting the site, or my ISP, at the same time. But, given that it was 7:30 on a Saturday night, I kinda doubt there were that many other losers hanging out online or at the Coke site.
So is there a lesson here? I know, based on my own experience/mistakes, that any time you make a user wait more than a few seconds for a marketing experience (no matter how awesome it may be) you will lose between 25 and 50% of your audience. They simply won’t wait around for you. You were probably interrupting them, pulling them away from something else they were planning to do, in the first place. So, while the judges at Cannes may wait 10 seconds for a screen to load, the judges in Duluth, Minnesota will probably not.
