The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Responsive Design Zone Associated British Foods

Silver Spoon appoints Zone for 6-figure digital account

Author

By Jessica Davies, News Editor

August 7, 2013 | 3 min read

Silver Spoon, part of Associated British Foods, has appointed independent digital agency Zone to manage a six-figure digital brief following a three-way pitch against two undisclosed agencies.

The deal will see Zone manage the sugar brand’s online baking community BakingMad.com, which claims 325,000 monthly visitors and spans all its baking products including Billington’s unrefined cane sugars, Allinson flours and Nielsen-Massey vanillas and flavours.

The site will be overhauled to feature responsive design to capitalise on the “disproportionately high” level of mobile traffic, according to Silver Spoon’s head of home backing and desserts Matt Smith.

It currently sees nearly half of all traffic come via mobiles, while a further 20 per cent comes via tablet, taking the total to 64 per cent.

“It is critical we have responsive design because tablets have completely changed people’s behaviour, and they are no longer cooking with paper recipe books, but using their tablets while they cook instead,” he told The Drum.

The sugar brand currently has separate mobile and desktop sites, which are different in design and user experience, but Smith believes people are increasingly seeking a consistent experience across all devices, making responsive sites a priority for the brand.

“I don’t think people want different experiences these days – they are rapidly switching between devices all the time and seeing content in a different way on each is unhelpful. Responsive sites are critical,” he added.

The deal marks part of Silver Spoon’s overall strategy to build engagement for its visitors and provide additional value for its 200,000-strong member base to encourage repeat visits.

This will potentially include providing members with exclusive content, early access to new recipes, competitions and offers, according to Smith.

“We have now reached a level of scale where the next most important thing has become the level of engagement we have with our visitors – a significant proportion come once to the site and don’t return, so we want to ensure our content really sustains people.

“We have a broad range of levels of bakers, from eager starters right through to almost semi-professional bakers. All have different needs and desires and we want to ensure the site has the content to match their needs, and help them develop their skills and become better bakers,” he told The Drum.

Building and sustaining its online baking community is a major part of Silver Spoon’s overall marketing strategy, given it doesn’t have the budget to invest in heavyweight TV campaigns, according to Smith.

“Digital is a really important medium for us. People are increasingly looking online for inspiration and advice so being there is important.

“There is a massive consumer desire to bake in the UK, fuelled by TV shows like the Great British Bake Off, and there is no sign of it abating. Baking Mad is there to tap into and help fuel that passion point for people,” he said.

Zone’s remit will also include developing an e-customer relationship management (eCRM) programme, alongside the relaunch of the site.

Responsive Design Zone Associated British Foods

Content created with:

Zone

Zone is the customer experience agency inside Cognizant. We generate value for businesses by creating transformative customer experiences.

Zone does this...

Find out more

More from Responsive Design

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +