Signs of Success
There are many indications that Bacardi executives, Bombay Sapphire consumers, and industry observers think that AsExpressedByYou.com is a success. For example, Bacardi is expanding the campaign from the U.S. to the world market. Bacardi will ask several contemporary designers to create their own glasses. And the company is now giving away limited-edition Bombay Sapphire bar sets for the best glasses created by site visitors.
From the October 1, 2001 launch through November 26, 2001, visitors created 8,921 glasses. (See Table 1 for access stats.) About two-thirds of the users provided email addresses on an opt-in basis, which Bacardi can use in future promotions. "These are people creating glasses just for fun and emailing to friends," notes Chau. "Once we start the global promotion, I'm certain we'll get an even higher level of participation."
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table 1: Access Statistics for AsExpressedByYou.com |
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| October 1 to 31, 2001 | |
| Hits (Successful) | |
| Page Views | 99,220 |
| Visitor Sessions | 40,577 |
| Session Length | 00:05:02 minutes |
| Unique Visitors | 21,573 |
| Visitors Who Visited Once | 18,071 |
| Visitors Who Visited More than Once | 3,502 |
The average visitor spends five minutes on the AsExpressedByYou.com site. Over 15 percent of visitors spend more than 20 minutes. At a time when visitors often leave Web sites in a matter of seconds, between 5 and 20 minutes is a solid accomplishment for the team.
In mid-November 2001, the site won the Best Beverage Web Site award in the 2001 WebAward Competition sponsored by the Web Marketing Association. In December 2001, it was a finalist in the Best Branding Campaign category at the AdTech awards.
One of the biggest lessons that the team learned from the site is that promotion via email works. "We see dramatic spikes on days when [promotional] email is being distributed," says Chau. On the day of the email there is a large spike, followed by a smaller spike on day two. Traffic slowly decreases on days three and four until, by day five, it's back to the normal level maintained by banner ads and viral pass-around.
In future versions, the team plans to focus on its visitors who abandon ship in the first minute. Bacardi is considering testing the site without the opening movie, which will let users access the creative tool almost immediately. "As we've seen...people who do finish glasses indicate in their emails that they've had a lot of fun doing it," says Chau. "So we know it's a great thing if people stay with it and can do it quickly."
Michael ([email protected]) is a technical journalist and Flash animator. You can visit his Web site at www.hurwicz.com.
