The shortlist of candidates for the Computer Weekly E-Business
Excellence Awards has been drawn up. These five companies have been
shortlisted for the e-marketing award.
Leapingsalmon.com - Internet ordering for the discerning
diner
Online start-up leapingsalmon.com uses its Web site
to sell its range of gourmet kit meals, which contain all the
specially prepared ingredients needed to cook a meal. The site is
central to the company's marketing operation, helping it to build
brand awareness, reach a nationwide audience and inform customers
of new lines. Leapingsalmon hopes to leverage this increased brand
awareness as part of its move into offline sales and a planned
European rollout.
The site, which is aimed at 20- to 55-year old working couples who
are too busy to shop and do the preparation themselves, receives
about 50,000 visits a month. Customers view product information and
order the kits over the Internet. The kits are then delivered in
cool bags or boxes via a warehousing and courier network. The Web
site went live in February 2000 and cost about £1m to set up. The
company claims that brand awareness is now up to 70% and sales are
currently rising by 20% month on month.
www.leapingsalmon.com
Weavers - going national from Nottingham via the Web
The core business of Nottingham-based wine retailer Weavers is
selling its products wholesale to establishments such as pubs, bars
and restaurants within a 40-mile radius of Nottingham. However, its
Web site has helped it build a nationwide private customer base as
well.
Weavers hopes its online operation will raise brand awareness and
enhance customer relationships. In the future, it plans to add more
personalisation, allowing customers to view their purchase history
and create their own wine lists. It also plans to develop the site
to include its business-to-business customers, allowing them to
place orders online. Other channels such as Wap and interactive TV
are also being explored.
The site, which went live in October 2000, receives 200-300 visits
a week, of which about 13% are repeat visitors. Weavers claims the
number of visitors month on month is increasing by 10% and the Web
site has also led to an increase in the number of visits to its
Nottingham outlet.
www.weaverswines.comTeemLINK - cutting cinema advertisement distribution
costs
The TeemLINK system provides digital distribution of cinema
advertising. This means that advertisers no longer have to create a
copy of the advert on 35mm film stock for every screen at which the
advert is to play. This cut in distribution costs also opens up the
market to regional advertisers who until now have been limited to
static slides. Local advertisers can view their animated advert,
which is created in Flash or Director, on the Web site before it is
transferred to the distribution servers.
For distribution, playlists of adverts are created that sit on an
Oracle back-end. The server at the cinema will request the
playlists and graphic files, which are sent via the frame relay
network. When the adverts are ready to roll, they are run through
an Apple computer, which is attached to the projector. The system
allows flexibility in content delivery, allowing playlists of
adverts to respond to the needs of the audiences. The project is
currently in test phase with Warner.
www.teemlink.comCharacter Gifts - sectional sales analysis
Character
Gifts, a bricks-and-mortar retail operation which is part of
Lakefield Marketing, has developed a Web site to sell character
merchandise such as gifts, clothing and collectibles. As well as
the central retail site there are specialised sections related to
different characters such as Peter Rabbit and Paddington Bear. The
company has a worldwide appeal and is especially strong in
countries such as the US and Japan. It hopes to use the Web site to
increase sales and build brand awareness in the UK and European
markets.
The site, which went live in August 1999, receives about 406,000
hits a month from 8,100 customers and turnover averages £12,500 a
month. The company uses monthly Web trend reporting on each of the
different sections to analyse the usage of the site and is
currently looking at how it can improve the level of service
offered and add functionality.
www.charactergifts.comVirgin Wine Online - personal service
Virgin Wine's Web
site aims to help customers discover new wines from around the
world. But this is not all. It also provides a personalised service
that allows customers to provide feedback on wines as well
receiving recommendations. Customer interaction is a key function
of the site. The site is totally dynamic and uses a rules-based
approach to show different content to different groups. For
example, introductory offers are shown to new users only. User
profiles are created when users go through the Wine Wizard or when
they make a transaction. These profiles are kept up to date by
customers rating the wines that they buy. Some 8,000 bottles of
wine were ordered each day in June this year, and the current rate
of orders is three times that of last year.
www.virginwines.comAwards sponsored by BT