Sometimes people need a nudge to try something new and edgy. So here you go, we dare you—NO, we Double Dog Dare you—to consider this challenge from Chad White of the Email Experience Council:
Design an email that scrolls horizontally rather than vertically. Used with the right content, it’s a design format that can really stand out in the inbox, and might even generate a surge in forwards. Dylan Boyd of eROI over at The Email Wars blog has discussed this before, most recently in regards to a Dell email about wide-screen displays. For examples of horizontal scrolling websites, check out Urban Outfitters’ blog and the product pages on the Abercrombie & Fitch site.
If you take up this dare, let us know how it went by commenting below. And if you have a Double Dog Dare for the eec community, let us know about that too.
Horizontal scrolling could create a nice variation in a verticle-scrolling world. However, marketers should consider their subject before creating a horizontal email. I briefly checked out the Urban Outfitters example, and it annoyed me that I couldn’t use my mouse wheel. Something like a wide-screen TV or monitor could be more effective as a horizontal-scrolling email, but the link was broken so I couldn’t check it out.
Jeff Kempf, marketing intern at https://www.eroi.com
Jeff, sorry about the broken link. It has been fixed.
Your point about subject matter is a good one. I don’t know that Urban Outfitters’ email really need to sidescroll given the subject matter, but it was cool that they tried something different.
Urban Outfitters sent out a side-scrolling email on Oct. 6. Read about it here: https://www.retailemailblog.com/2008/10/am-inbox-side-scrolling-urban.html