Those of you who have been following the online debate among beer bloggers regarding ethics which was sparked by e-mail many of us received regarding the new Stella Artois website launch will no doubt be intrigued by their latest press release, which was about the website re-launch. In it, they claim that traffic has increased twenty-fold since the re-launch.
Here’s the part I think many of you will find interesting:
Both the mainstream media community as well as the social media internet community have broadly praised the website, developed by Lowe Worldwide under the direction of the Global Stella Artois brand team, and it has been awarded ‘Site of the Week’ status by the FWA.
“The interesting thing is that people are also staying on our site much longer than industry average estimates of 45 seconds,” said Neil Gannon, Global Marketing Manager for Stella Artois. “In fact, the main site attracts a viewing time of four minutes, with many people watching the short La Bouteille film, which also serves as the navigation for the site, for well over five minutes. And 30% of visits to our site are through word of mouth, rather than search engines, which is a really nice compliment,”
Reader reactions on industry blog Ads of the World (which advised readers to put aside at least half an hour to view the site) included “Wonderful! Engaging and entertaining”, whilst “Captivating, original and exciting” was the reaction from Welcome to the Future whose readers gave the site 4.8 out of 5.0. Contagious Magazine called the site an “online epic”, whilst Clare Beale, Editor of industry publication Campaign magazine and contributor to The Independent newspaper in the United Kingdom, called the website “cunning” and “with an entertainment value that means that viewers will spend time on the site and return for more.”
My initial reaction is that it clearly shows how they intended to use the beer blogging community as well as the online community generally. But I’ve been drinking seemingly non-stop in Germany for the last two days, slightly sleep-deprived and wanting desperately to go to sleep so I’m in no condition to give this my usual overthinking. So instead I’ll ask you what you think about this latest press release from Stella Artois and whether or not it has any relevance or effect on our earlier dialogues?