Kraft on the Internet – Can tradition and simplicity still be cool

Selecting a consumer goods company that has an online presence turns out to be pretty hard. And that is not because it is hard to find a company that fulfills the single criterion of having a Web site, just on the contrary, the question becomes how to choose one of the millions that are out there. Probably the easiest way out of this dilemma is to select something familiar and what can be more familiar than Kraft. Everybody who has ever walked into a grocery store in the U.S. or elsewhere has seen the red, white and blue logo on almost every aisle in all food categories from frozen foods, to marinades and salad dressings, to beverages, to cereal. In addition, the company also owns such product category leaders as Nabisco, Post, Oscar Mayer and Milka. Trying to name all of the brands that fall under the umbrella of Kraft is impossible but it probably suffices to say that its seven biggest brands rake in yearly revenues of over $1 billion each and 50 of its brands have yearly revenues of over $100 million. In the company’s more than 100 years long history, Kraft products have won the trust of consumers in more than 155 countries around the globe and are now present in more than 99% of U.S. households. The fact that Kraft is one of the most successful consumer goods manufacturers, with revenues of over $34 billion, is indisputable the question at hand, however, is how does such a behemoth adapt to the changing landscape of doing business and establish an online presence?

Over the years the company has used both the house of brands and branded house approaches. Regardless of whether or not Kraft appears as an integral part of the brand name, the main corporate site – www.kraft.com - divided into three sections Recipes & Product Information; Corporate Information; and Charitable Contributions, provides information on each and every one of the brands the company owns.

The Corporate Information section provides information about the company and the various brands. Investors can also find some useful information regarding the company at www.kraft.com/Investor. Information available includes financial news, stock information, SEC filings and annual reports, company fact sheet, as well as investor kit and corporate investor contacts. The site is also a useful resource for the media. At www.kraft.com/MediaCenter interested parties can find the latest corporate news releases accompanied by B-roll, logos and image gallery, as well as recent management speeches and the corporate media contacts.

The Recipes & Product Information link takes you to a different domain – www.kraftfoods.com/kf - where you can find everything you want and need to know about the company’s products, in particular, and food and eating, in general. Information than can be found includes new product developments; detailed recipes that include calorie counts and sometimes even “How-to” videos for the beginning cooks; health and dietary advice; store locators, and many more. Everybody who has ever been responsible for preparing their own food knows that the hard part is often times not the cooking itself but rather coming up with an idea of what to cook. It turns out that at www.kraftfoods.com/kf/Dinner there is a quick and easy solution to this problem, all you have to do is enter three of the ingredients that you want to use for your meal and the site will come up with a list of suggestions for meals that can be prepared using those ingredients. This section of the site also provides suggestions for meals that just take minutes to prepare, as well as budget meals. You can also Kraft’s template to make a well-organized shopping list so that you don’t miss any of the groceries you need to buy. Finally, the Dinner section provides advice for storing and freezing food for those of us who like cooking but can never precisely calculate how much they need to prepare if they don’t want to be eating the same thing a whole week.

At www.kraftfoods.com/kf/Entertaining one can find different recipes for everyday meals, as well as suggestions for holidays and special occasions. The recipes are divided into Appetizers, Entrees, Sides and Desserts for ease of use. Some of the recipes are accompanied by “How-to” videos but I have to warn you that if you are using a Mac you should not rely to heavily on watching those because they refuse to play, or at least on my computer they do. The site also offers tips on planning parties that can help you calculate the amount of food and beverages you will need depending on the number of guests and guide you with the choice of the menu.

The site also provides information on healthy living at www.kraftfoods.com/kf/HealthyLiving. Here the calorie-conscious part of the population can play around with tools like body mass index calculator, fiber & carb and calcium counters, and food analyzer. People can also learn how to burn those extra calories from the Dessert menu, what is their proposed healthy weight based on their height. They can also watch some exercise demos and find recipes for healthy, dietary meals. The site also has articles on nutrition, including kids nutrition; smart snacking; weight management; food allergies and sensitivities; and diabetes. There is an entire separate Diabetes Center for those affected by the disease, who still want to enjoy a tasty and nutritious meal.

There is also a place for mothers and kids on the site at www.kraftfoods.com/kf/YourKids. Here mothers can find kid-approved recipes, as well as recipes that might be appealing to little choosy eaters. In addition to that, visitors to the site can find ideas on how to make cooking an entertaining, enjoyable and safe experience for the little helpers. In this section mothers can also find a lunchbox cheat sheet to help them prepare healthy, easy and fun lunches for their kids. Three lists of lunchbox jokes complete the menu. The site also provides mothers with advice and suggestions for birthday party preparation, including everything from the food and party fun to the invitations and thank-you’s, as well as recipes that can entice little choosy eaters.

Another section of the site is dedicated to making cooking an easier and more pleasant experience for the novices. At www.kraftfoods.com/kf/CookingSchool beginner cooks can find everything from “How-to” videos and step-by-step preparation instructions to advice on product substitutions (if you ever want to bake something but realize there is no baking powder, don’t panic – you can use 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar instead). The site also reveals some grilling secrets and provides advice on how to select the best knife for a specific type of product. Information on baking cookies and freezing food can also be found on this Cooking 101 page.

If you still have any questions concerning Kraft products, food or cooking, you can post them on the sites message board and you will receive a quick reply from the Kraft Kitchen staff. Information on different promotions and sweepstakes is also available at www.kraftfoods.com/kf/promotions. Archived issues of Kraft’s Food & Family magazine can provide further information on numerous topics.

The third section of the main site – Charitable Contributions – provides information on the charity initiatives that the company is undertaking both in the U.S. and globally. As a seamless fit for its products, the company focuses its efforts on supporting programs that help alleviate hunger and promote healthier lifestyles. All causes that want to apply for donations by Kraft have to meet four criteria that can be found at www.kraft.com/giving/united-states.

In addition to the Kraft site the company has also developed a number of separate sites for promoting its products in an engaging way. Postopia is a site where the little fans of the Pebbles cereals can play a variety of games and win PosTokens, online coins that can be used to unlock secret levels, extra lives and bonus points. In order to be able to use all the different features of the site kids should create an account. The registration process asks them to fill in their gender and age, children younger than 8 years are required to get their parents consent before registering for the site. Postopia, however, does not connect to the Kraft main site in any visible way.

Kraft also recently launched a viral site for one of its other cereal products – Honey Bunches of Oats with Real Chocolate Clusters. The site is centered on the idea of introducing a new holiday – the day after Valentine’s Day. A viral music video called “I made you breakfast in bed” by Dawn’s Early Knights entertains the visitors to the site. At the end of the video a coupon for $2 discount on Honey Bunches of Oats with Real Chocolate Clusters is provided. The site links to the “I made you breakfast in bed” microsites on YouTube.com and Facebook.com. If you like the cheesy song, you can download it as a ringtone for your phone or you can email a personalized video to your significant other to remind them everyday can and should be the holiday of love. The site can take you to Kraft’s main site trough a link at the bottom of the page or in the Pantry section of the site.

Overall, kraft.com is is doing a great job with enhancing Kraft's reputation as an irreplaceable helper for those who want simple, tasty meals everyday. However, the experiential sites the company has created for some of its cereal products have been moderately effective in attracting new people to the brand. Probably because there is no obvious connection between those sites and the company's main page - Posotpia and Breakfast in Bed are not mentioned anywhere on kraft.com and there is no visible Kraft presence on the experiential sites, either.

From the Social Networking Frontier?

Users of social networking sites and advertisers seem to have opposing views on the topic of whether commercial messages are needed or wanted in sites like Facebook and MySpace. While advertisers think that these sites are the one best way at the moment to reach the ever-elusive Gen Y, members of Facebook and MySpace are getting fed up of being bombarded with advertisements on their profiles. As BusinessWeek reported yesterday, a lot of social network users are discontinuing their accounts just because they are sick and tired of learning every little detail of their friends’ online shopping activities.

Despite these accounts and the decreasing rate of growth of social networking sites CBS entered into a partnership with Facebook and is launching a microsite that will allow the users of the network to track the NCAA college basketball tournament and make predictions about who is going to win it. The name of the application, which can be found at www.facebook.com/brackets, is NCAA March Madness Brackets. It will allow Facebook users not only to post their own predictions but also to compare them to their friends’ bets. They will also be able to browse through the tournament coverage of CBS Sports, CSTV, CBSSports.com and NCAA.com, including links to watch the games live. The application will also be available on mobile devices so that users can rank competing schools directly from their phone via the CBS Sports Mobile Web site.

MySpace also entered into a partnership with a media outlet last week. The social network with the greatest number of users around the world will promote the digital issue of Spin magazine. Spin Digital was posted for the first time in January in a “soft launch,” the February issue will mark the official launch. As part of the deal, MySpace users will be able to read Spin Digital for free for the first 12 months of the campaign. They will also have access to audio samples, video footage and interactive ads that they can post on other Web sites.

Microhoo – To Be or Not to Be?

The possible merger between Microsoft and Yahoo continues to be one of the most widely discussed topics. Analysts believe that now that it has become clear that there will be no knight on a white horse offering to save Yahoo, decision time has come. Two are the most probable outcomes of the situation: either Yahoo would give in to Microsoft or it will try to make a deal with Google, outsourcing Yahoo's search advertising to its biggest rival. One thing that makes the second outcome less likely than the first is the fact that so far Google does not appear to be interested in offering any deal to Yahoo. According to some this is probably due to Google not wanting to risk being involved in anti-trust issues again, especially after all the clamor surrounding the deal with DoubleClick. While it is clear that a potential merger between Microsoft and Yahoo will not threaten Google’s number one place as a search provider, some observers note that the combined content of Yahoo! and MSN properties yields an impressive list of top sites by industry category. The decision is not yet taken but questions about the future of Yahoo employees and products is a matter of concern to both users and the general public.

An Online Shake-up Is Coming Down the Road

This past week there have been several announcements with potential to shake up the online world.

First, MySpace announced that it is going to become open source, following the example of rival Facebook, and allow people access to its code. The hope is that this way new applications and features will be built into social network much faster.

Today there is another hot news discussed in all media - Microsoft just bid $44.6 billion, or $31 per share, on Yahoo. Microsoft executives say this is the second time they contact Yahoo with a proposal to join Research & Development forces in order to be able to combat market leader Google. In 2006 the offer was turned down with the explanation that it was not the right time. Now that Yahoo's shares have fallen below $20 for the first time in several years, Imran Kahn, an analyst at J.P. Morgan, suggested that the proposal is likely to be accepted.

The Footwear War in the Age of Mass Customization

Supposedly we are entering the era of mass customization so if a company wants to be “cool” and stay on top of the trends, it should offer its customers the opportunity to personally design the products they are to buy. Burton was among the first to let its patrons personalize their snowboards by customizing the graphics for the boards. Soon others joined the bandwagon. Among them the giants of the footwear industry and archrivals, Nike and Puma with the Nike iD and Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ Web sites, respectively.

So I head on a quest to discover how it feels to be the creator of your own shoe. But before I do that I should probably let you know that I am one of those old-fashioned, boring people that prefer shopping the traditional way. Especially when it concerns clothing and shoes. Somehow I like going into the store, looking around confused, frowning a little, trying this and that with the hope to see the “that’s-so-totally-you” look on the assistant’s (or, preferably, my friend’s) face and then I buy. To do justice to the contemporary shopping style, several times I decided to be extremely modern and venturesome and bought shoes from eBay and I have to admit that for the most part I was very happy with what I got, but I also ended up with several pairs that were either too small or too big, so I came back to the traditional way. This said, I can now share with you my experiences with Nike iD and Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ. Oh, and one more thing before I begin – I admit being a die-hard Nike fan so I might be a little prejudiced but I think not too much.

I started off with Nike’s site and first thing I noticed is there is no swoosh on the landing page and I do not mean this is necessarily bad, I just noticed it, maybe because in my mind Nike and the swoosh always go together. One thing that made a positive impression on me is that the site itself is available in six languages – English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Chinese – an important step if you want to make your site accessible to the greatest number of people and if you proclaim your company global or international. When I selected “English” it then made me choose between U.S. and Europe. At first I wondered what the big difference was except that maybe “color” will be switched to “colour” but I later realized that it is rather the $ signs being turned into £.

But that said, let me focus on the site itself. And here I have to make my first serious remark – it takes too much time to load, or at least to someone used to Google-fast it does. I also have to say that it falls into the “nothing special” category in terms of design. It aims at being cool, trying to create a team feeling with its locker room theme but somehow it does not cut it. For me. Something is missing, maybe the music. I had to look around for a while to try and figure out how the whole customization thing works but soon I am all ready to go. I am a little surprised that none of the Nike models I own is on the list of shoes that can be customized but I finally select my first shoe and get started. And I have to admit it is pretty fun actually. There are so many things to choose from. I started off by selecting my size (or at least the size I suppose I should be) and then came the base color (I start blank so that I can fully experience the customization process plus I really do not like the orange-green combinations that are obviously quite fashionable recently), followed by a secondary color and colors for my straps, the first time I had straps and not lace), backtab, swoosh, swoosh border, lining, outsole and stitch. There are between 12 and 14 colors to choose from and I have to frankly admit I never thought so much time and effort went into the design of one sneaker. But at the end I have a pair of pretty cute Nikes with my name, or at least an abbreviated version of it since it did not let me use more than five characters, at the fot. It is funny but I am almost tempted to buy them so I cautiously press the “add to cart” button waiting to see how the customization affected the price and I am pleasantly surprised to see nothing changed. But still as I think about it, I decide that maybe I should save them as a screensaver first and then if I still want them after looking at them for a while, buy them. As a matter of fact, I so much enjoyed my first customization experience that I went on to create a pair of male sneakers and then one for kids. As I experimented with the male pair, I first wanted to write on it “master” but it would not let me so I then tried “Superman” which was rejected as well so I assume Nike exerts some control on what goes out in the market with its brand name on it. When this pair was done I decided to save it to myLOCKER to see what that is and I found out that if you are willing to share with Nike your personal information and get an account for the Web site in return you will be endowed to some discounts and early peeks at new and limited collections. I decline the offer and after one more pair of sneakers am ready to move along to Puma’s site.

Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ’s menu comes only in English, something I personally consider one of the weaknesses of the site. Otherwise, I have to admit it looks very nice and is definitely “cooler” than Nike iD. I like the whole idea of mixing the ingredients of your shoe, here the underlying theme of the site is much more obvious and coherent. And it would have been even better if I managed to convince the audio to play for me but regardless of how many times I pressed the on and off it never started. I am still not too worried because I assume I can listen to my Pandora and work on my shoes but I soon find out this is not quite that easy because the site is very, very slow, compared to it Nike iD loads in an eye’s blink. My second disappointment comes when I open the menu and realize that there are only two models that I can customize and there is no difference between male, female and kids. For comparison, Nike has 38 women’s models, 53 men’s and four kids’ models to choose from. Since there is nothing I can do about this, I select my shoe and then I am presented with the dilemma whether to choose the “Dine In” method of customization and go through what Puma calls the “full customization experience” or to take the “Express Line” to customization. Since I am sure to be making a second pair I decide to go the extra mile the first time. And I soon discover that customization can be not only fun but also… painful! I find it extremely hard to navigate the tongs that I have to use to select my colors and materials plus my shoe is totally dismantled so I cannot get a visual idea of what it would look like. I once decided to use the “Preview” option but after waiting for more than five minutes for it to load I decided that it is probably not worth it and moved along. Finally, I go through all 21 (Who would have thought?!) parts of the shoe that need to be customized and I am ready to see the result of my half-hour long endeavor. But I soon realize that my waiting is not over yet since it takes the chef quite a while to mix the ingredients I have selected and present me with the final creation. I have to say the final result is not bad for someone who initially had no idea of what “fot” and “eyestay” were but I am not very sure whether it was worth the wait. Nevertheless, I decide to experiment with the “Express Line” option and I have to say that if you ever decide to use the site to customize your shoe, this is the way to go about it. It is easy to see what the different options are and to select from them, plus you get the extra benefit of seeing what your shoe looks like while you are creating it. This part of the site is very similar to Nike iD the only difference being that there are many more colors to choose from – the number ranges between 13 and 31. This second shoe takes me mere seven minutes to make and that is just because I am very particular about the color combinations and my sockliner this time. Unfortunately, this site does not have the wallpaper option that Nike iD has so I have to keep on throwing my sneakers in the dog’s bag but it is still fun.

After several hours of virtual customization I feel like I have had enough of online shopping for now. It was a nice experience after all. And I am amazed at the thought that were I to purchase any of these shoes dozens of messages will be immediately sent to all the parts suppliers saying Stefana needs red liners and silver laces. It is amazing how much technology has done the way we do business, the way we live. I cannot help but wonder if twenty years from now the kids would know what traditional shopping once was. Maybe not. After all who ever once thought that people will step on the Moon or be able to make artificial blood.