Hootey Whoa: Email Branding Misses the Mark for Top Chef’s Carla
So, does your company’s email marketing creative bring across your brand’s true identity and flavor? I was reminded of how important that truly is by some recent emails I received from Alchemy by Carla Hall.
Carla Hall was a finalist on season five of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” and was voted fan favorite of the recently completed “Top Chef: All-Stars.” Her motto is “cook with love” and she comes across as bubbly and fun—everything her email creative isn’t.
I signed up for Hall’s email list after coming across a link to Alchemy, her new cookie company. My husband, my sons and I are all big “Top Chef” fans—when Godiva offered “Top Chef: Just Desserts” truffles, we rushed out to buy a box (disappointing, but what can you do?). So I knew when Hall’s site opened a proper ecommerce store we’d want to know immediately so we could order a box of cookies to try.
After signing up, I pretty much immediately got an email from Feedburner asking me to activate my subscription to Alchemy.
After that…nothing, for about a month and a half. Then, last week I got a message with the subject like “Alchemy by Carla Hall.” Um, catchy, no? No. And the contents? A picture of a cookie tin on a white background, with a rundown of what was in the tin. No offer, no picture of Carla, no quips like her trademark “hootey hoo!” exclamation. Not much of anything, except for link on the “Sweet Collection – Large Tin” headline, which took me to a 404 error page.
Maybe this was a mistake, I thought. Maybe someone hit the button and sent the email before it was ready?
The next day, another email came through, with that same catchy subject line again. Maybe this is the corrected version of yesterday’s message? This time, two interior headlines appear—the “Sweet Collection” one again, coupled with the “Savory Collection – Large Tin”—again, linking back to not much of anything. And absolutely no imagery this time
Hall may not want to draw a lot of traffic to her site until a proper ecommerce operation is set up, and that makes sense. But the dull and drab sedateness of Alchemy so far just doesn’t suit her style. CarlaHall.com gets her personal flavor across a little better, with a blog featuring recipes and video of her at the White House Easter Egg Hunt. But it’s clear that her email/ecommerce strategy isn’t fully cooked yet.
(Click here for Hall’s participation in a recent Earth Day effort by The Nature Conservancy, a great brand extending excursion.)
