target audience

Campaign Spotlight: Ads Proclaim, ‘Hail, Finlandia’

May 6, 2013 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

The answer, increasingly, is to take the presentation of a product as heroic to humorous heights, praising it in an overly florid, overenthusiastic fashion with tongue planted firmly in cheek. The idea is to wink at the target audience, as if to say: “We know that you know this is an ad. We like our product and hope you’ll buy it, but we can all agree it’s not the cure for the common cold. So we’re pitching it in a way that will bring a smile to your face.”

The epitome of the new take on product-as-hero is the popular Old Spice campaign by Wieden Kennedy, dating from 2010, that is known as “Smell like a man, man” or “The man your man could smell like.” The confident spokesman is sincere, but his spiel is so comically over the top that it signals consumers that Old Spice is in on the joke.

Joining the ranks of product peddlers that portray themselves in superheroic fashion is Finlandia cheese, sold by the Finlandia Cheese unit of the Finnish company Valio, which is depicted in a new campaign as the pride of a “land of fine cheese,” Finlandia, “where cheese reigns.”

The campaign, now under way, plays up what it calls “the bold flavors and fine, natural ingredients of Finlandia cheese,” but does so in a broad manner reminiscent of the Monty Python school of humor, which takes the edge off the continuous praise of product attributes.

The stars of the campaign are mythical, mystical characters who seem as if they would be perfectly comfortable consorting with the denizens of the continents found on “Game of Thrones.” Each has a Pythonesque moniker like the Cheese Dunce, the Flavor Philosopher, the Cheese Masochist, the Flavor Caretaker, the Cheese Rogue, the Cheese Gladiator and the Cheese Watchman.

There is also a noble Cheese Warrior, who stands in front of a stone wall and is dressed in medieval garb. In one hand he carries a banner emblazoned with the Finlandia logo and the words “Where cheese reigns.” In the other hand he brandishes a sword that skewers a high pile of sliced Finlandia cheese.

The campaign, with a budget estimated at $3 million to $4 million, includes radio commercials, billboards, transit ads, posters on phone kiosks, signs in stores, sample giveaways, contests, a new Web site and a presence in social media like Facebook.

The campaign is being created by an agency in New York with an offbeat name of its own, Barton F. Graf 9000. The media duties for the campaign are being handled by MediaWorx in Shelton, Conn. A public relations agency, the Bender Hammerling Group in Montclair, N.J., is also working with Finlandia.

The campaign is the first significant effort to promote the Finlandia brand’s product line “in many years,” says Michelle Maxson, director for consumer marketing at Finlandia Cheese in Parsippany, N.J., and comes after conducting more than a year’s worth of research that found “people really love our cheese” but “our awareness is low.”

“There’s an opportunity to grow the brand through a comprehensive” campaign, she adds, particularly as the company is expanding from its signature Swiss cheese into other varieties like provolone, pepper jack and Cheddar.

(Some cheeses are imported from Finland and some are made in this country with the help of “our cheese masters,” Ms. Maxson says, who are brought over from Finland.)

Ilkka Nivari, president and chief executive of Finlandia Cheese, acknowledges how different the campaign’s approach is, and embraces it.

“I have to admit, there were some people saying, ‘Oh, this is not going to work,’ ” Mr. Nivari says.

However, “we had earlier come to the conclusion that if you look at cheese advertising in the United States, all over the world, it’s the same,” he adds, featuring cows or centered on “good taste.”

“We wanted to have something else,” Mr. Nivari says, “because we didn’t have the money” for a huge campaign that would increase awareness.

The result was to try taking a tack that would break through by being unusual for a food product.

Finlandia Cheese began looking for a creative agency in the summer of 2012, Ms. Maxson says, talking to “a lot of qualified companies.”

“Through this experience I realized how important the right partners are,” she adds, and Barton F. Graf 9000 “just had the passion we wanted to see.”

“They really understand what we were all about,” Ms. Maxson says, “and how much of an opportunity there was for this brand.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/business/ads-proclaim-hail-finlandia.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: bold flavors, philosopher, target audience

Media Decoder Blog: AARP Will Embrace Life’s ‘Possibilities’ During Grammys

February 8, 2013 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

AARP will seek to cultivate a more contemporary image with a big new brand campaign that, to underline the message the advertising intends to convey, will make its debut during the CBS broadcast of the Grammy Awards on Sunday night.

The campaign, with a budget estimated at $25 million to $30 million, will introduce the theme “Real possibilities,” which will appear not only in the ads but also in prominent locations like the home page of the AARP Web site, aarp.org, and the front cover of publications that include AARP the Magazine.

The campaign is the first work for AARP from the organization’s new brand advertising agency, Grey New York, which was selected to handle the assignment after a lengthy review. The previous agency for AARP’s brand work was GSDM in Austin, Tex., part of the Omnicom Group.

AARP is among many blue-chip brands that will advertise during the Grammys show. Although it is nowhere near the showcase that the Super Bowl is each year, the Grammys broadcast will feature several new campaigns, like AARP’s, along with new and fresh commercials in continuing campaigns, like for candy brands sold by Mars.

The Grammys represents “a great venue to reintroduce” AARP and helps “close the relevance gap,” said Emilio Pardo, chief brand officer at AARP in Washington, by promoting the organization as understanding how the target audience – Americans ages 50 and older – lives their lives today.

“As you get older, you used to have the feeling you had fewer possibilities, for romance, for work,” Mr. Pardo said. “Now, it’s quite the opposite; possibilities should be ageless.”

AARP has addressed those issues previously, particularly when it began using the name AARP in place of what the letters once stood for, American Association of Retired Persons.

Still, there remain stigmas surrounding the words “retired” and “retirement,” particularly a perception that AARP and its members consider retirement a conclusion rather than the start of something new.

To counter that, the “real possibilities” theme will be used to suggest that AARP members are eagerly “asking what’s next,” Mr. Pardo said.

The ads will underline that by presenting the name AARP as standing for “An Ally for Real Possibilities,” and suggest that the “R” in the name stands for positive words like “reimagine,” “rewarding” and “richer.”

AARP is to run two commercials from the new campaign during the Grammys; three more are planned. The commercials, filmed in black and white by the director Tony Kaye, will be narrated by the actor Chris Noth of “Law Order” and “Sex and the City,” who, at age 58, is squarely in the organization’s demographic target.

In one commercial, depicting a man driving, Mr. Noth says: “A car has a rather small rear-view mirror so we can occasionally glance back at where we’ve been. It has an enormous windshield, so we can look ahead to where we’re going.”

“Now is always the time to go forward and imagine all the possibilities that lie before us,” Mr. Noth continues, then suggests a visit to aarp.org/possibilities to “find tools and guidance.”

In the other commercial, boots are shown walking down a porch and into a field. “Were you more interesting in your 20s, or now?” Mr. Noth asks.

“Experience makes you wiser for the wear,” he adds, “and now come the richer possibilities.”

Rob Baiocco, the executive creative director at Grey New York who wrote the campaign, said he has some perspective on the subject matter because at 49, he is “close to the AARP age myself.”

“We’re hitting a reset button with this campaign,” Mr. Baiocco said, because the definition of “what it means to be” 50 and older has changed to the point where many people now believe that “instead of running from it, they embrace it.”

“Fifty is not the new 30,” he added. “Fifty is the new 50. Lean into the knowledge and life experience that comes with it.”

The campaign will include, in addition to the television commercials, print and digital ads, radio commercials and a significant presence in social media like Facebook and Twitter.

“Our digital and social outreach might be the most ever in the history of our organization,” Mr. Pardo said, reflecting the changing media consumption habits of the target audience.

Mr. Baiocco said, “We’re trying to be provocative, interesting, cool maybe, like the people we’re talking about” in the campaign. Grey New York is part of the Grey division of the Grey Group, which is owned by WPP.

Mars plans to run two commercials during the Grammys, for its Twix and Snickers candies. They will follow the appearance during Super Bowl XLVII last Sunday of a new commercial for another Mars brand, MM’s.

The commercial for Twix will be new, another in a humorous campaign, “Try both and pick a side,” that is centered on a fanciful history of the brand. The campaign describes how the left and right sides of each Twix bar are made in separate factories.

The commercial for Snickers was introduced recently, during the SAG Awards presentation on TBS and TNT. The spot, part of the humorous campaign “You’re not you when you’re hungry,” features Robin Williams and Bobcat Goldthwait.

The Snickers and Twix commercials, like the MM’s Super Bowl spot, were created by BBDO, part of Omnicom.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/aarp-will-embrace-lifes-possibilities-during-grammys/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: brand campaign, chip brands, target audience

Advertising: Keds Campaign Features Taylor Swift

January 24, 2013 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

The 21st century equivalent may be the Taylor Swifty, named for Taylor Swift, the young singer and songwriter whose relationships have become fodder for comedians online and offline.

Magazines including Life Style, Time and The Week have mocked Ms. Swift’s proclivity for writing songs about her ex-boyfriends. And during the Golden Globes, as Sam Fox, the 23-year-old son of Michael J. Fox, helped present the awards, Tina Fey pretended to warn Ms. Swift against dating him.

As Taylor Swifties proliferate in the media, the Keds line of footwear is preparing to introduce a campaign featuring Ms. Swift that delivers a strongly social message to the brand’s young, female target audience. The campaign, scheduled to begin in print, online and in social media on Thursday, appeals to “brave girls” and “bravehearts” and offers Ms. Swift as a role model.

“If you’re lucky enough to be different from everyone else,” Ms. Swift is quoted as saying in one ad, “don’t change to be the same.”

Another ad offers advice like this: “Try things. Say hi already. Laugh a lot. Mess up. Apologize. Mess up again. Hug people. Take chances. Trust yourself.” The litany ends, “Be brave and you’ll have the time of your life.”

A special Web site, bravehearts.com, and a section of the Keds Web site, keds.com, are to be devoted to the campaign’s theme, carrying encouraging words like “Welcome, brave girl, keep your head high and your heart open” and “Don’t you dream impossible things?”

The campaign, with a budget estimated at $20 million, is being handled by Toth Company, for the creative aspects; the ShopPR division of Lippe Taylor, for the digital and social media elements; and PGR Media, for the media duties.

The campaign builds on a relationship between Keds and Ms. Swift that started in October, when Keds sold red sneakers inspired by her new album, “Red.” Now, Ms. Swift becomes the face of the Keds brand, which since May has been owned by another familiar name in footwear, Wolverine Worldwide.

Ms. Swift’s growing relationship with Keds comes as her marketing presence has increased. For instance, she worked with the Walgreens and Duane Reade units of the Walgreen Company to sell merchandise bearing her name, which included T-shirts, posters and calendars, in an effort that began in October and continued through the Christmas shopping season.

“She’s a classic in the mold of the great country singers with wide appeal” like Garth Brooks, said Ira Mayer, publisher and executive editor at The Licensing Letter, a newsletter in New York, part of Business Valuation Resources. “Even people who don’t like country music like her.”

Mr. Mayer said he did not believe that the jokes about Ms. Swift would detract from her appeal as an endorser.

Although “no one wants his or her love life hung out on the line to dry,” he said, such “gossip is part of what celebrities have to cope with nowadays.”

The jests about Ms. Swift, who is 23, have not affected her image, according to widely followed measurements of celebrity popularity known as Q scores. “She’s been remarkable in her ability to retain her above-average appeal,” said Henry Schafer, executive vice president at the Q Scores Company in Manhasset, N.Y.

Ms. Swift’s Q score is 24, Mr. Schafer said, compared with 17 for the average celebrity and 16 for the average female singer. And with females age 13 to 24 — the intended audience for the Keds campaign — her Q score is 26, he said.

“Her emotional connection with that demographic is very strong,” Mr. Schafer said, so for Keds “she looks like a good choice.”

Among children ages 6 to 12, he added, Ms. Swift’s Q score is 45.

The campaign represents a significant increase in ad spending in major media for Keds. According to the Kantar Media unit of WPP, spending totaled $1.7 million in 2010, $1.1 million in 2011 and $363,000 in the first nine months of last year.

“We started doing a lot of consumer insight work,” said Rick Blackshaw, president for Keds in Lexington, Mass., and found that “heroes are important” to the brand’s target audience.

“We thought about who would be Brave Girl No. 1,” he said, and came up with Ms. Swift, who “at 14 convinced her family to move to Nashville so she could pursue her musical career.”

As for the Taylor Swifties, “it’s nothing we’re going to comment on,” Mr. Blackshaw said. “We think she is a fantastic role model, an incredible talent and really meaningful to our girl.”

That was echoed by Bob Fouhy, president at Toth in Cambridge, Mass., who praised Ms. Swift because “she so strongly embodies what the Keds brand is about: being eternally optimistic and confident.”

“The world says what the world says about celebrities these days,” he added. “We’ve worked with lots of celebrities, and she was remarkably down to earth, considering her ‘superstarness.’ ”

There are plans for the campaign to include other elements like scholarships and mentorships.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/business/media/keds-campaign-features-taylor-swift.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: media elements, target audience, taylor swift

Advertising: Your [Choose Your Expletive] Ad Here

January 16, 2013 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

WORDS that once would have had mouths on Madison Avenue washed out with soap are becoming common enough in advertisements that one could wonder if the familiar Wendy’s slogan from 1984, were it being introduced today, might be brought out as “Where’s the [choose your expletive] beef?”

There are two main reasons, experts say, for the increasing frankness of the language in everyday advertising. One reason is that it reflects the increasing frankness of the American vernacular, as evidenced by the swear words that are uttered by characters in television series and that appear on the covers of mainstream magazines.

The other reason for the trend is the greater efforts being made by marketers to appeal to the younger consumers, in their 20s and 30s, who are known as millennials or Generation Y. Because those consumers are generally more accepting of such language than their parents or grandparents, marketers say they believe that including those words will help the ads appeal to the target audience.

For instance, the “creative sweet spot” for a $5 million campaign for a new product — a line of intimate wipes named Fresh and Sexy by Playtex, intended for use before or after sexual activity — is men and women in their late 20s, said Erik Rahner, group marketing director at the Energizer personal care division of Energizer Holdings in Shelton, Conn.

The hope is that the campaign “bonds with our consumer and be fun, lighthearted and playful,” Mr. Rahner said, “yet bold enough to break through the clutter.” So the headlines for the ads are a carnival of carnal puns, featuring slang terms for body parts and the sex act.

A tamer ad was also produced, to meet the standards of media companies that reject the headlines as too provocative. That ad carries the headline “Not keeping it clean always gets you rejected.”

But only a few media outlets turned down the versions with the double entendre, Mr. Rahner said, adding that “at the majority, there was not even a debate” over their acceptability.

Elaine McCormick, a creative director at Grey New York, the agency for the new product, said the inspiration for the cheeky headlines “was that we’re living in a ‘That’s what she said’ world.” Her reference is to the phrase that transforms a prosaic comment into a joke about sex; it is a favorite jape of Michael Scott, the character played by Steve Carell on the sitcom “The Office.”

“It’s the idea of innuendo, that everything is open to interpretation,” said Ms. McCormick, whose agency is part of the Grey Group division of WPP. “I do think people are more accepting, and they want to have fun with an ad.”

That kind of approach is also evident in a new campaign for the Gardein line of meatless food products, which carries the theme “Start a healthy relationship.” The campaign, with a budget estimated at $400,000 to $600,000, offers a twist on terms related to dating that millennials are wont to use: One ad calls the brand “a friend with nutritional benefits” and a second ad asks, “Tired of the meat market?”

That language “is part of the social norm,” said Russell Barnett, vice president for marketing at the Los Angeles office of Garden Protein International, which sells Gardein.

“Talking that way makes it easy to start the conversation” with potential customers, he added, and helps develop an image for the Gardein brand as “approachable.”

At the same time, said Bob Froese, chief executive at the Gardein creative agency, the BrainStorm Group in Toronto, “we want to stay in the boundaries of good taste” because “when you deviate from that, you’re provocative for provocative’s sake.”

“It is a very thin line,” Mr. Froese acknowledged.

Mr. Barnett said the goal is for the campaign to be “playful, which is part of our brand tone.”

“We went through tons and tons of lines” for the ads “to settle in on what feels comfortable and could be tied back to our product and what it stands for,” he added. “The moment we had to explain a line, it was wrong.”

Still, one person’s playfulness may be another’s vulgarity. That is particularly true in categories in which consumers are willing to give marketers more leeway in the tone and language of ads, among them sex-related products, apparel and liquor. Sometimes, license veers off into what is perceived as licentiousness.

For example, a campaign in 2009 for Three Olives, a vodka imported by Proximo, asked consumers a question with a double entendre that implied sexual ecstasy. A subsequent campaign used humor and a new one, with a budget estimated at $20 million, uses an endorsement approach, featuring the British actor Clive Owen.

The new concept is to promote the “distinct and premium position” of the Three Olives brand in the vodka market, said Elwyn Gladstone, senior vice president for marketing at Proximo in Jersey City, by playing up that “it’s imported from England.” The ads call Three Olives “the London vodka.”

As for the past provocative approach, “it is not a thing we have continued with,” Mr. Gladstone said, because “it just didn’t really catch people’s attention.” The new campaign is from an agency in Brooklyn called Dead As We Know It, which did not create the previous two campaigns.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/business/media/your-choose-your-expletive-ad-here.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: mainstream magazines, slang terms, target audience

You’re the Boss Blog: An Advertising Pro Debates the Merits of Cheesy TV Spots

August 29, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Branded

An insider’s guide to small-business marketing.

I recently saw a list of cheesy local TV commercials that got me laughing and thinking. Why exactly do these spots have such a time-honored place in our culture?

In Corpus Christi, Tex., where I grew up, the high priest of the daytime local genre was Mr. Louie of Mr. Louie’s Wig City. Day after day, he took to the airwaves, entering our living rooms while standing in front of hundreds of Styrofoam heads, each with a thousand-mile stare and some kind of Eva Gabor number on top. He’d shout their names as if they were horses coming down the home stretch: the Aspire! The Invitation! The Lite and Airy and Cheer! The Perk!

The grand finale of the spots was Mr. L, in solidarity with his target audience, wearing something that looked like coal on his head, and in full-on monotone, delivering the line that somehow seemed to make female follicles sit up: “Ladies, if your hair is not becoming to you, you should be coming to us!” The camera holds for three full seconds and then pulls back to show the support group of big-haired but vacant faces. Fade to black. Many years later, this commercial — $200 to produce, tops — still occupies a shelf in my brain.

But was it effective advertising? Clearly, a lot of other local advertisers thought so. In the New York metro area, Crazy Eddie, the electronics retailer who filled 30 seconds as if he had a vest with explosive devices underneath his Santa suit that would detonate if his decibel level dropped, will not soon be forgotten. Atlanta had the Wolfman and sidekick Donna, pitching sofas. Indiana has Butt Drugs, a sing-along spot with the cheeky line “free parking in the rear.” Houston has Mattress Mack and Gallery Furniture (voted the worst and best TV ads in the Houston Chronicle in the ’80s) and the newer Houston furniture store pitchman making a run for the bedding crown, Hilton the Chainsaw Guy of Hilton Furniture — who wound up being treated to 15 minutes of precious national TV fame courtesy of Conan O’Brien.

These pitchmen — because they’re so good? because they’re so bad? — often ignite their own celebrity, expanding their companies and hanging with sports stars and writing best-selling business books.

These commercials just keep coming, so they must be getting results. This is professionally painful for me to acknowledge, but some of these spots are very effective in making sales. Here are some thoughts as to why we respond to the high cheese factor:

The spots are memorable. The higher the cheese, the more we gawk. Like a bad wreck, we just can’t look away. They give us something to talk about around the water cooler, a common frenemy to have fun with and, perhaps, feel a little superior to.

We secretly like being yelled at. Cheesy commercials dislodge us from couch-potato stupors. They get our attention.

We have a weakness for faux celebrities. Spokespeople create their own celebrity by putting themselves in front of a camera and buying airtime. Recently, finding myself across the salad bar sneeze shield from a local chiropractor who “stars” in his own TV spots, I got a bump in my pumps — even though he was a lot shorter than he comes across on TV!

We kind of like being told what to do. Yes, we like to think we make our own decisions, but when someone directs us to “Come on down and see me!” we often respond like dogs to bones.

And yet, I continue to believe that there are alternatives. Let’s look at a car dealer whose ads are highly entertaining, memorable, achieve results and are of another genre altogether. The ad agency R/West was hired by the Suburban Auto Group of Sandy, Ore. (about 45 minutes from Portland) in 2004 to create some TV spots. The series of Trunk Monkey ads that resulted were entertaining and affordable to produce — each on less than the dealer’s cost of a new car.

“It’s about recall,” said Sean Blixseth, founder of R/West. “We work in this industry that is sort of paralyzed by the idea that you have to put a lot of information in an ad to get someone to pick up the phone and call you, when sometimes all you need is to get someone to remember you.”

People remember the Trunk Monkey ads and that memory and association — unlike more typical car dealer ads — is positive. The subtle brilliance of these spots is that the whole question of “Do I trust this car dealer?” is whisked off the table. Consumers unconsciously take away that Suburban and its tire-jack-wielding primate are looking out for you. Today, the Suburban Auto Group is one of the top Chevy and Corvette dealers in the Northwest. It also sells thousands of Trunk Monkey T-shirts a year.

The beauty of a good commercial — especially in the age of YouTube — is this: when it’s highly memorable, businesses can spend a lot less on media and get solid returns. According to Mr. Blixseth, the Trunk Monkey series has well over a million YouTube hits. The media value of those views is off the charts.

So, can we step away from the cheese? Or are these kinds of spots — and here’s one more personal favorite — just too much of who we are? What do you think?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=8c5f7210f9d293a32da953f4bd3f88d2

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: best tv, new york metro, target audience

You’re the Boss: What’s Wrong With This Web Site?

June 23, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Since December, Colorado Mountain Coffee has been selling mountain-roasted Arabica coffee exclusively online. Its owners say that what sets the company’s coffee apart is its roasting process, which is done at high altitude. “With less oxygen and pressure at high elevation, we are able to preserve the beans’ delicate flavor profile,” said Ryan Wagner, who founded the site along with David Richards.

As you can tell from the look and feel of the site, the target audience is outdoors people: hikers, climbers, skiers — all people who relate, Mr. Wagner said, to the idea of mountain-roasted coffee. That’s why the coffees have names like “Ragin’ Moose,” “Jittery Ascent,” “Treeline” and “Trailhead.” The site features a blog, an e-commerce store and even a video of a caffeine-fueled Mr. Wagner climbing a tree.

The marketing for the site has included a Google AdWords campaign, social media, promotional events and an Android app that helps you measure out the amount of coffee you need for your particular taste. The app has been downloaded more than 1,000 times.

“The biggest disappointment was Google Adwords,” Mr. Wagner said. “A modest advertising budget was spent, but a significant amount of conversions remained elusive.” The social media efforts have been only slightly more successful. Twitter and Facebook, Mr. Wagner said, “continue to be a mixed bag. We run contests on both platforms with varying results but remain optimistic.” On a recent day, there were 49 “Likes” on Facebook.

Mr. Wagner said that search engine optimization had been a primary concern from the beginning. “Most of our traffic comes from the more obscure long-tail searches involving Colorado, high altitude and other mountain terms combined with the standard coffee keywords,” he said. “Other searches, such as ‘coffee calculator,’ are showing our related pages on the 1st and 2nd pages of results. We are slowly climbing the rankings and are adding useful content to help generate more search engine interest. Our blog generates search engine traffic as does the coffee calculator. Where we have had the most trouble is generating links from other sites. We have asked site owners for links/exchanges, offered coffee for review and generated helpful and interesting content, but so far the results have been less than desired.”

The company’s most successful marketing has come through promotional events. “Since we promote an active lifestyle with our Web site theme, we have a presence at a handful of triathlons, aquathlons, bike races, etc. We serve complementary coffee and sell bags face-to-face to our customers.”

Still very much in its infancy, the site has seen increasing traffic steadily and now approaches 1,000 unique visitors a month. Revenues, however, are still only a few hundred dollars a month. Since abandoning AdWords, the site has been relying almost entirely on social media, leaving marketing costs at a mere $30 a month.

“Over all, we are very pleased with the current look of our site,” Mr. Wagner said. “However, we are constantly brainstorming better ways to present our products, and from time to time we make minor updates. As a purely online retailer, our site is the only face of our company to many customers, and so we are always on the lookout for better ways to present our coffee.”

Please visit the site and tell us what you think. What features do you like? What’s missing? What’s confusing? What needs to be improved? Would you buy coffee from this site? Is the coffee calculator app helpful? Please review the marketing efforts as well. Go to the search engines and see how the company fares. Then please share your views in the comment section below.

“David and I are constantly looking for ways to improve our site,” Mr. Wagner said. “We began with a focus group before launching the site and have jumped at the opportunity to again have more eyes take a careful look.”

Next week, we’ll collect highlights from your comments, I’ll offer some of my own impressions, and we’ll get Mr. Wagner’s reactions as well.

Got a site or mobile app you’d like to have critiqued? I am always looking for Web sites and mobile apps to review. I am especially interested in hearing from businesses that are using smartphones, iPads and other mobile devices and apps as tools in marketing, selling and branding. To be considered, please tell me about your experiences — what works, what doesn’t, why you would like to have your Web site reviewed — in an e-mail to youretheboss@bluefountainmedia.com.

Gabriel Shaoolian is the founder and chief executive of Blue Fountain Media, a Web design, development and marketing company based in New York.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=0276d12f9c86da2ed1cff7921c426d48

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: facebook, media efforts, target audience