Do you remember when Tamayra Gray was up-and coming?

“A new, musical mini-version of Romeo and Juliet, directed by super-hot fashion photographer David LaChapelle is available for viewing online, only at the H&M website. Featuring Mary J. Blige, “American Idol” staring Tamyra Gray, and up-and coming dancer Gus Carr, the six-minute film was launched earlier this month to kick-off H&M’s fall jeans marketing campaign.”

I wrote that back in 2005, when I was a trend reporter for an international multicultural marketing firm looking for web trends. The microsite was hot. I found myself going back over and over again, sitting through a 6 minute flash page without hitting skip just to hear the music. At the time, it was innovative and enticing. However, while designers, developers and actionscripters try to force feed content down the throats of their audience through elaborate microsites with splash pages that have long since lost the ability to do anything awe inspiring (featuring been there done that interactivity that doesn’t really give any relevant information) I find myself asking, is the microsite dead?

A few weeks ago I saw a press release announcing Toyota was going to launch a microsite targeted at “African-American females” in an attempt to get them to buy Camrys. Being an African-American female I waited impatiently to see if they were going to do anything great. Today I got the answer as I scrolled past an irritating ad on BET that wouldn’t leave the screen. Reluctantly I clicked on it and was taken to iflookscouldkill.com and quickly left, only to get an email this evening with someone telling me to check out the Toyota microsite… I received the confirmation.

Microsites are in fact, dead.

Ok, in Toyota’s defense, they are trying to pick up on the trend of people watching TV on the web. And they did get black people for their webisode show, but… it’s nothing new and shiny. Neither is the game that is integrated into it; rule #1: Don’t make interactive games too difficult for your audience, it should be challenging however they should feel like they win or “get it” and not like they are searching endlessly. I doubt I’m going to go back for the next part of the saga or buying a Camry anytime soon.

If microsites are dead, where do we go from here in terms of targeted marketing campaigns online? What ARE people doing? The first thing that comes to mind is microblogging and user generated multi-media content. I headed back over to H&M’s website only to find that they are still at it, capitalizing on the trends of the internet. H&M is looking for “a strong personality” to represent their Ginza Tokyo store launch on their podcast. Users from all over the world get to upload 30 second videos of themself (script outline provided by H&M to make it that much easier), it gets played in a little flash player, and then the viewer has the option of clicking yes or no to vote for that person to be the personality. Short, quick and user generated. Added bonus: It takes all of 5 seconds to vote for someone (and you don’t have to watch the videos to vote). In that 5 seconds, the user already has a sense of a stronger connection with the brand either by voting or being a participant in something important. Podcasts are old business and, as always it is difficult to find content for them that will have mass appeal. This contest also freshens up their podcast a bit.

This seems to be more inline with what web users want and for the most part have come to expect. Now if they had a microblog where audience could post 50 word comments in response to the videos? That would be hot. Imagine the possibilities for contests like these targeted towards the black community. Now that would be shiny.