ESPN recently redesigned their website (not sure exactly when) and has launched a new TV campaign to promote the site. If you haven’t seen the ads, watch below, then read:
In general, I find it interesting that they have chosen to promote the subdirectory URL (i.e. espn.com/somethingyouareinterestedin) aspect of the site, since, in my experience, novice users don’t always fully understand how to use those URLs (and clearly ESPN has to appeal to the entire population). Though I’ve found that people tend to find “domain.com/subdomain” clearer than the other method — “subdomain.domain.com”, in general they are far less likely to use a subdomain than to just go to the main site and look for the content they seek.
In spite of that larger issue, I noticed some other minor issues that could create big problems for the worldwide leader:
The voiceover states (verbatim), “espn dot com, slash… Bill Simmons, The Celtics, The Fighting Irish, Mike Golic, Serbian Table Tennis Sensation Biba Golic…” However, typing in espn.com/THEceltics does not work (caps for emphasis only). Nor does espn.com/THEfightingirish or espn.com/serbiantabletennissensationbibagolic! Ok, so maybe that last one is a bit of a stretch, and when they quickly run through the URLs at the end of the commercial, the “the” is gone (as is the “serbian…”), but still, shouldn’t the voiceover state the URL correctly?
I suspected another flaw was that they showed spaces in the names of multi-word items (i.e. Bill (space) Simmons), but typing the space into the URL actually works! Clearly somebody was thinking of these types of issues, so how did they miss the announcer stating “The Celtics”???
Another issue I noted is that when you go to espn.com, it automatically redirects you to espn.go.com, a relic of Disney’s failed “Go” network of the late 90s. From the homepage, however, if I type “slash” billsimmons on the end of the espn.go.com URL, it does not work. Only when I type the full URL from scratch (i.e. espn.com/billsimmons) does it point me to the right place. It took me a minute to figure this out — and I’m quite good at this stuff. Would a normal user try more than once, or figure it out if they did? Doubtful.
Even if users are ready for the whole “slash” concept, these minor inconsistencies will surely create problems for some people and force them to have a negative impact on the overall campaign. It would certainly be enlightening to see how these commercials do in terms of audience response and traffic to the website, though I guess the only way to find out would be if some ESPN employee (you know who you are) would tell me.