Popular Site Gets Facelift, New Features for Kids and Professional Chefs
(August 19, 2003) The California Milk Advisory Board (CMAB) will debut an updated version of its popular Real California Cheese website (www.RealCaliforniaCheese.com) this fall. The website was originally launched in 2001 as a friendly, entertaining place for consumers to find information about California cow’s milk cheeses and cheesemakers. Since then, the site has grown rapidly and today boasts a monthly average of 16,000 visitors who view around one million pages of content.
The revamped site will feature a simplified user interface to streamline navigation, updated graphics for a consistent look and feel with other campaign advertising and new content targeting professional chefs, health care professionals and kids. It will also emphasize "viral functionality," the ability for users to forward favorite features -- such as the Happy Cows televisions ads -- to friends and family.
Michael Freeman, CMAB Vice President, Advertising, says the site is a great marketing tool that rounds out the hugely successful Real California Cheese campaign.
"A well-designed, information-rich website is essential to any integrated marketing campaign," said Freeman. "Since we launched the site, it has grown beyond what we envisioned, so we are streamlining it to make it easier for visitors to navigate. We're also adding new features to keep consumers interested and to appeal to other important demographics."
One target audience is children, who in June accounted for about seven percent of site traffic. "Kids not only influence their parents' purchasing patterns, they are also future consumers," said Vince Li of Deutsch Inc. Advertising, the Los Angeles advertising agency that developed and manages the site. "The new content we've put together for them, such as a sophisticated Happy Cows interactive game, is a fun way to introduce them to the world of California cheese."
Underscoring the success of the Happy Cows television advertising series, CMAB data show that 37 percent of content viewed on the site in June was related to the television commercials. Other popular features include California cheese recipes and usage tips, information targeting pizza restaurant operators and a shopping section with Happy Cows merchandise. Content on California cow's milk cheesemakers also receives significant traffic, with features such as a directory of all California producers that includes direct links to those whose cheeses are available for online purchase.