“About Us” Evaluation: Movado Gets a D

Movado is famed for the “Museum Watch,” whose face has a single gold dot at the 12:00 spot, and which was the first watch displayed at the Museum of Modern Art. The company’s roots go back to Switzerland in 1881, although the company’s headquarters are now in Paramus, NJ. The Movado Group designs, manufactures, and distributes luxury timepieces (Movado, Concord, Ebel, ESQ) and fashion watches (Coach, Hugo Boss, Juicy Couture, Lacoste, Tommy Hilfiger). Its About Us page is here.

OVERALL GRADE: D

The main About Us page and all the sub-pages have black text in a center box with a scroll bar, set in a sea of white space. We are always inexpressibly annoyed at this sort of set-up. It makes it difficult to skim the page or to refer back to earlier material on it. And it wastes prime territory: why are there no photos of the watches on these pages? The LVMH Group did a spectacular job with a similar set-up.

Accessibility: C

The Contact Us page is adequate, offering the option to visit the pages of different brands, to contact a service center, or to write or call the company headquarters.

Personality: D

Movado’s About Us pages are stark black and white, without personality. The only exception is a reprint (in black and white, without illustrations) of a 2003 article from Watch Time on Movado Group founder Gerry Grinberg. Once we scrolled through page after page of tiny type, we learned that Grinberg played an important role in the history of luxury watch sales in the United States. Why not give this more attention? And why not feature newer material? Eight years is an eternity in Web time.

Products/Services: E

It is inexcusable not to have images of watches produced by Movado on the About Us pages, as well as on the separate pages for each brand. Would we click an extra link to look at an unfamiliar brand? Probably not. Would we click that link if we saw a photo of a gorgeous watch next to the link? Well, yes.

TAKEAWAY

By not including photos, Movado loses a great opportunity to entice viewers to look at its products.

Does your Web site’s “About Us” section accurately convey your organization’s history and capabilities? Every two weeks we evaluate one example, grading it in three areas that are key to potential customers: Personality (Who are you?), Products/Services (What can you do for us?), and Accessibility (How can we reach you?). Contact us if you’d like to have your site evaluated—there’s no charge and no obligation.

Today’s example was chosen at random; CorporateHistory.net has no ties to this company.