10 mind-blowing microsites

Fred Brown
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Websites Posted on September 23, 2009

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VW Polo and Golf

Let's kick off with two microsites from Volkswagen, just to show how different they can be -- even within one brand.

VW Polo

My first car was a VW Polo, purchased in a color I am embarrassed to reveal. But then, if you haven't got an embarrassing car story in your garage, you haven't lived.

What I love about this microsite is the balance between creativity and utility. From the aspirational and inspirational videos to the customize function, VW basically gives you a "build your own" tool kit wrapped into a video-based microsite. Fantastic. This feels as close to a digital translation of a long-form TV commercial as you're going to get.

VW Golf GTi

A Mark 3 GTi was my second car -- quite an upgrade from the radioactive green Polo. I saw this microsite in German and, despite understanding not a word, I was mesmerized. An exciting site for an exciting drive -- just the way it should be. Full-frame video gives a rich experience, and a range of downloads gives users what they want.

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Barbara Coll October 13, 2009 at 11:52 AM

Fred, this is an excellent article to show the value of 'fragmenting' corporate content. I think it is a good thing. I blogged your article with a few comments about the Search Engine Marketing aspects of microsites. Summarized here:

"If you look at from the Search point of view: it gives you a targeted destination for converting keywords, it provides more content associated with your brand that you control, and the sites may get you another place on the coveted first page of results. On the down side: many developers of microsites do not design them in a search friendly way, they don't tend to be linked into the rest of the world, and rarely do they have enough text-based content. If I were developing a microsite and would like it to be visible in search results, I would make sure it was search friendly."

Fred Brown September 23, 2009 at 6:39 PM

Thanks for your comment, Kathryn. I completely take your point, and think that 'Great sites on a budget of $10k or less' would make an interesting article in its own right - I will suggest it to the editor. As Last Exit didn't create any of the sites referenced I don't know the budgets involved, but I think it fair to say that they would have cost relatively less than the main sites for the brands featured.

Fred Brown September 23, 2009 at 6:38 PM

Hi Cyhyoung Park. Apologies in advance if any of these are attributed in error, but so far as I know... both VW sites were by Tribal DDB, Sprint Now was by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. Taser was by Your Majesty, the Economist was led by AMV BBDO, Red Bull by Less Rain, Nokia by FarFar, Waterlife by Jam3 Media, Philips by Struck Creative and Mini by Glue London. If any reader knows different please let me know and I will be pleased to make a correction.

Fred Brown September 23, 2009 at 6:38 PM

Thanks Damir - I love your analogy!

Kathryn Klein September 23, 2009 at 1:22 PM

"Not only are budgets for microsites smaller than for a main site, but they can be set against and individual product or service marketing budget much more effectively." I think it is misleading to tell most advertisers that budgets for microsites are "smaller" and then to show microsites which clearly have budgets that by far exceed the budgets for most advertisers main sites. There is not one of these 10 microsite examples that has a budget even close to what many, many advertisers have for their entire web and/or overall marketing budget. Show us some great sites on a budget of $10K or less.

Damir Saracevic September 23, 2009 at 12:04 PM

Fred, great article! Another anology I have used in the past is one of the catalog and a sell sheet. Think of your corporate website as a catalog and a microsite as a sell sheet and it definitly resonates with the clients.