Artigiano meets Where’s Wally?

Catalogue marketing 101 teaches us that we should never make the shopper work too hard to find product. The Spring 2009 edition of the Artigiano catalogue disregards this rule, though. Throughout the book the models sport shoes, bags, and other accessories that elegantly complement the clothes. But does Artigiano tell customers where they can find the shoes? In a word, no. We had to flip to page 39—more than halfway through the book—to view the accessories. Not one spread of an evening outfit invited us to “turn to page 40 to see our full range of handbags”, not one photo featuring a pair of trousers suggested that a matching belt could be found on page 41.

But that’s not what irked us the most about the catalogue. No, what really bugged us is that on the cover—and throughout the catalogue—the model are wearing sunglasses, but we couldn’t find a price for them anywhere. Several different pairs of sunglasses feature prominently in the catalogue, but none of them are referenced. Does Artigiano even sell sunglasses? A quick visit to the website suggests it doesn’t. So why make them so visible throughout the catalogue? We must have been through the book a dozen times trying to work out if sunglasses were for sale. By the end we were exhausted and in no mood to shop.—MT