Captains of Industry

By Ted Page, Captains of Industry
One of the more attention-grabbing submissions we’ve received with our Incredibly Boring Web Content Challenge is from a company called “Intimate Surprises.” They have a web-based service you can sign up for that sends you and your mate monthly surprise packages with “items that are fun, sexy and unexpected – and designed for couples to enjoy together.” Although there are no photos of these items on the site, I am making the leap that the items are not related to knitting, baseball card collecting, or scrabble. In any case, the submission from Intimate Surprises raises a very important question: Is it enough for your product to be sexy in order for people to seek it out on the web, or does the web content – the interactive elements, the video, the copy, etc – have to MAKE the product sexy?

The answer is twofold. First, even the sexiest products need fascinating content in order to stand out. After all, there is no shortage of web companies who sell items that couples can enjoy together in their bedrooms. Intimate Surprises needs sexy content just as much as a million other websites. The other part of the answer is that most good products, whether they be computer chips or anti-microbial sprays, are sexy to someone. Computer scientists are turned on by really fast chips. But even the best of these products often languish on the web because the content that describes them is dull. Their story isn’t told well. That’s what this is all about. If you tell a great story about a product that has real value, and you do it in a way that’s fascinating or fun, people will come to your site to seek it out.

We’ve received some great submissions to date and Intimate Surprises is definitely in the running, but there’s still time for your company to enter before the March 8th deadline. If you haven’t yet entered, submit now. Good luck!