TAG Heuer: Making timely changes

An unusually well-focused use of changeable imagery on a home page.

The Site

Swiss jet-set watchmaker TAG Heuer uses an image selection on its home page featuring sports personalities sponsored by the brand. Only one image is shown in the central image panel but this changes on return visits to the site or home page and also when clicking through to any of the seven local language versions of the site (English, Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Chinese).

The image selection currently features golfer Tiger Woods, F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen and tennis player Maria Sharapova. At the start of this week (22 August), the captioning of each had been updated to congratulate the star on their latest achievement including wins for Woods and Raikkonen the previous day. The captioning is in the local language on all but the Japanese version of the site.

The Takeaway

Changeable imagery of itself is not a rarity, especially on marketing-related sites such as TAG Heuer’s. However, the watchmaker’s use of the device is unusually well-disciplined and focused. For a start, it is done for a purpose rather than the effect of giving the home page a visual lift. The images play off the brand’s well-known use of sports stars in its offline advertising while using the updatability of the web to reinforce the continuing ‘up to the minute’ successes of its chosen “ambassadors” and keep an otherwise unchanging home page fresh.

The execution also avoids revolving the images on an automatic cycle while the page is open, which few visitors will hang around long enough to spot or follow. Though a degree of change between local language sites might be advisable: congratulating Finland’s Raikkonen on his latest grand prix win on the Spain site might not be the best marketing ploy ever given the man he beat, Fernando Alonso, is currently that country’s most popular sportsman.

First published on 20 August, 2005