The definition of microsite is generally agreed to as an extension of a primary website. The main distinction of a microsite versus its parent site is its purpose and specific cohesiveness as compared to the microsite’s broader overall parent website (say thanks to Wikipedia).
Extending their individual, vastly different and yet very successful campaigns both Idea and Dell have launched microsites catering to their branding goals. For Idea it is taking online their successful TV campaigns, their recent one with the political plug to it has been taken online with Bythepeople.in. While Dell continues its renowned online campaigning with an Indian twist this time through takeyourownpath.com to foster entrepreneurship.
Bythepeople.in would seem like an attempt on the lines of the much talked about Jaago Re campaign by Tata. And the initiative is to build a discussion about Participative Democracy as showcased in the popular TV commercial. According to their release, this is just phase 1 of their online campaign and in future they plan to extend the debate into action by taking the opinions generated on the site to the government to intitiate the changes sought ‘by the people’. The site offers a quick view and exit and basically asks for a 10 word opinion on an issue that the user wants to discuss and debate.
Dell’s initiative – takeyourownpath.com on the other hand is to foster the entrepreneurial mindset among Indians through success stories of others. The site features rich media content of 5 successful Indian entrepreneurs who chose their own path and who tell their story themselves. And of course the essential part of how their dell represents their goals and how it helped achieve success. The content structure and display on the site is creative and crisp and is more interactive compared to Idea’s venture.
Both sites if I am not wrong plan to promote the sites through online advertising mainly led through banner advertising on popular portals. This to my mind (and for obvious reasons) could have been backed by socialising the content. Right now there are no social sharing tools on either of the sites and are possiblly losing out on a major viral channel which could have reduced their eventual cost per visitor. Perhaps the audience segment they are targeting isn’t quite the kind who would contribute to a viral channel especially social media, but something as basic as email promotion and invitation could have been pursued. Given the fact that these initiatives are conceptualised and executed by digital only agencies the lack of user generated/driven promotion surely is a let down.
(The news was of course sourced from afaqs.com)
