Google's Superbowl Commercial

Google found a creative way to tell a love story through the use of their own search engine. This was one of my favorite Superbowl commercials and reminded me of one of my roommates who actually met her current boyfriend while studying abroad in France! The commercial already has over a million hits on YouTube. View the video here.

Case Study: Mass Customization

NikeID vs. Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ

In an ever-changing digital world, companies must compete to grab consumers’ attention while they shop online. Websites are now an integral part of the consumers’ shopping experience and are expected to be informative and engaging at the same time. The arrival of mass customization allows consumers to personalize the products they intend to buy. Customers generally appreciate the personal attention they receive when selecting products and it is in a company’s best interest to strategize accordingly. Two competitors in the athletic shoe market, Nike and Puma, use mass customization to provide consumers with the opportunity to design their own shoes.

The NikeID website is specifically dedicated to the personal customization of Nike’s athletic footwear. The site is visually intriguing with bright colors and graphics to catch the eye of potential customers. Customers who are ready to design their own shoe can begin by choosing a style or color scheme to begin the process. Customers are prompted to choose a color for each area of the shoe, including the base, heel, Nike’s symbolic “swoosh”, and the shoelaces. Certain areas of the shoe, such as the base, also offer the option of a graphic design on top of the chosen color.


The customer can also personalize their shoe to the point of adding text on the collar of the shoe, with a maximum of two characters. This ID is perfect for the use of a customer’s initials, which helps to give the shoe a personal feel. A graphic on the collar may be used in place of text and various team mascot images are available to choose from. There is an additional ID located on the inside tongue of the shoe. This particular ID is text only, with a maximum of six characters. Overall there are twelve steps in the custom design process.

The Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ has a similar concept to the NikeID website, with a few key differences. The website has a restaurant theme including a chef that welcomes visitors to the site and a menu to choose shoe styles from. Even the shopping cart at the top of the page where consumers can put products before they purchase them is called the doggie bag.


Puma allows customers to choose from three selected styles of athletic shoes. Customers can begin designing their customized shoe or browse previously designed shoes for inspiration. Puma offers a wide variety of colors and materials for the sides, front and back of the shoe. In addition, the Puma logo and inside of the shoe can be personally designed. Optional colors go beyond the expected scope of the rainbow and include shades such as “burnt olive” and “silver metallic”. The available materials range from suede to leather to canvas.

While each website was easy to navigate and entertaining, certain qualities offered a different customer experience. I found that the NikeID website was captivating from the start, with eye catching images and many styles of athletic footwear to choose from. In contrast, the restaurant theme of the Puma website was creative but had little to do with shoes. Each website offered a variety of options in regard to colors and details to personalize each pair of shoes. The NikeID offered a text and mascot graphic option, which is lacking on Puma’s side. However, Puma’s website appeared to offer more variety in materials and a different range of colors than the NikeID. I also found that the Puma website had a better overall view of the shoe, from every possible angle. This would be helpful as a potential customer in order to feel assured that the shoe was going to appear as you had intended. My only complaint would be that the Puma website was sometimes slow to upload during the design process. This was frustrating and might have deterred me from purchasing shoes if I had actually been shopping. I had a smoother experience when designing a pair of NikeID shoes, although it was difficult to get started. The NikeID website offers more styles to custom design, which is positive if you already know which type of shoe you are searching for. In the end, I believe I had a better custom designing experience with the NikeID website. The NikeID was more visually appealing and offered a variety of styles to choose from.