Clever campaigns can breakdown via email

Kelly Mooney points us to a GAP email with a (too?) clever subject line. The latter suggests the email is about mens fashions, but the content is actually about new female fashion trends drawing on menswear designs.

This twist in the tale works well; a clever play on words and images that comes over nicely. But only if you have the audience's attention, so they see both the "misleading" introduction and the wryly amusing denouement. Great for TV or print. But what about email?

You don't automatically have the audience's attention with email. Based on the introduction (the subject line), the audience decides if they want to see the denouement (the email content.)

If the subject line is too clever, people don't bother reading the email and miss the whole joke. How many women read the subject line and hit delete, never realizing the "menswear" email really was relevant?

To be fair to GAP, there are two other things working in their favor. First, they are GAP, so the brand itself encourages people to open an email. The subject line doesn't need to do all the heavy lifting alone.

Second, the subject line includes notice of a "Fall sneak peek", which might get women to open even if the menswear reference is uninteresting.

If your audience isn't quite so into you as the typical GAP subscriber, though, it might pay to be less clever and more obvious with your subject.

More on subject lines | Tags: email marketing, subject lines

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