Eric Edelstein

I was reading the latest news on IOL a little earlier and saw an interesting ad for “Great Pockets” on suits.

Although I hardly ever click ads, this one got my attention and I wanted to see what they were advertising.

It was for a site by Henry Needle & sons who do Hand Tailored Great Pockets clothing.

I was intrigued as the site followed the format of another site I wrote about a few months ago - the Cavemans Crib - flash based, or some other interactive way of letting you follow a story. The characters in the story were hilarious, and I spent a few minutes interacting with the site…

…as the Henry Needle site lets you choose which way to go - similar to the old books where you “make a decision”.

However, after selecting “Gents” and then “business clothing” and being taken to a menu which says “no thanks” or “online store” or “about us” I’m curious to find out:

1. WHAT IS A UNITED KINGDOM BESPOKE CLOTHING RETAILER IN SAVILL ROWD (that’s how they spell road in the “about us” section!!) DOING ADVERTISING ON A SOUTH AFRICAN PORTAL?

(sure, a few South African’s living in the UK read IOL, but is that why they are advertising, or did some agency convince them to spend money online, and not knowing any better, their funds are being spent on a South African portal)

2. If Henry Needle is purposely advertising on IOL (for some reason?), (and is not advertising to South African in South Africa by mistake instead of geo-targetting only to the ex-pat South Africans living in the UK who read IOL), do they realise that the Henry Needle site for South Africans under the Telkom taskmaster, is incredibly BANDWIDTH INTENSIVE?

By the way, I probably enjoyed the interactive experience far more than you will, as the background music on the site was a loud version of Tracy Chapman’s “for you”. The slightly pompous english accent with Chapman singing in the background was BRILLIANT - only a few minutes into the experience, did I realise that I had my iTunes on in the background!!!