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Our Website of the Week for Marketing

Have you noticed the recent vogue for enigmatic websites? Ones that lead you on a magical mystery tour of hyperlinks, visuals and conundrums without exactly stating…well, what they are there for. Tokyo Plastic is one such site. It sounds like a recipe for disaster; after all, it's often said that one of the keys to a low bounce rate is for users to instantly comprehend a site's function. But that would be to miss some key aspects of this trend, ones that we can all learn from.

Humour

The cartoon-like sound effects immediately grab your attention as you load up the home page. Pass your cursor over the menu items on the home page and you'll hear everything from a mooing cow to a squeaking teddy. Well, it certainly raised a smile from this blogger! Humour, fun and originality are what separate the great from the merely average in Webland. These qualities also ensure an excellent visitors return rate. Innocent Smoothies is another fantastic example of this.

Intrigue

The home page is eccentric to say the least - what is that small furry creature doing kipping in the left hand corner? Why do the menu items include such categories as 'work' and 'kitteh kitteh'? Click on 'website' and we are invited into an aurally stimulating wonderland. It's highly interactive too, as we need to click on hyperlinked graphics for the show to go on. There is no sales pitch here, just a dazzling display of animation which trades on the natural curiosity of the average net surfer.

The Viral Factor

Creating videos that are quirky one-offs and then linking the website to sites such as Vimeo and Youtube guarantees heavy web traffic. Make something special and viewers will also digg and like and tweet your work to the wider public. This site is also smart enough to make you feel like you're getting a heck of a lot for nothing. This extremely soft sell tactic entices you to click on the "merchandise" link, if only to discover a little more about what this puzzling “Toyko Plastic” brand is all about - result!

Other enigmatic websites/campaigns:

- Wired Magazine tells the fascinating story of the online campaign designed to promote the Steven Speilberg's movie, A.I. This became one of the first 'Alternate Reality Games' on the web.
- Radiohead's 'Memory Hole' section on it's Deadairspace site sends users on a wild goose chase, encountering the random and the profound along the way.
- Read the fascinating story of Eon8.com. This was a baffling site counting down to 12:00am on July 1st, 2006 (EST), causing wide spread panic on the net.