Speech Summaries

Michael D. Moore Worldwide Director, Purina Interactive Group Nestlé Purina PetCare Co.

Creating Demand And Driving Loyalty In A Multibrand Environment

Michael D. Moore, Worldwide Director, Purina Interactive Group, Nestlé Purina PetCare Co., talked about the development and role of Purina brand sites. The company launched its first site in 1996, and today Mr. Moore manages 30 different sites, serving a variety of audiences including vets and veterinary students, nutritionists, food scientists, and breeders. These sites are about tools and applications, he stated. "It's more than just a Web page." For example, one site includes a breed selector to help consumers choose the breed that's best for them. The site can also help consumers locate an adoptable pet of that breed.

Purina has fielded research to measure whether its consumers are using its branded sites and to determine whether it should invest beyond these sites in online advertising -- and if so, where it should advertise. "I do believe in online advertising," Mr. Moore said. Purina found that its dog food buyers were more likely than the average Internet user to visit its branded sites, and although click-thru rates were low, Purina found that online advertising did increase overall awareness of its brands.

Mr. Moore described several skills necessary to build a diverse portfolio of sites: focusing on the most valuable consumer segments and appreciating technology and the consumers who use it. "You must also have willingness to try and fail," he said. In the end it's all about satisfying consumer demand for information about pets and petcare from a trusted source.

Questions And Answers

Q: Does the Wal-Mart private-label dog food scenario scare you?
A: Not really, there is a segment of customers that wants to buy private-label products, and there's a segment that doesn't.

Q: The development and maintenance of 30 brand sites sounds very expensive. Can you share best practices?
A: One best practice is that not every brand needs a big site. One of our agencies has developed a template that we've implemented successfully for new brands. It has helped us to cut costs from six figures to less than $50K. The Beneful brand has been very successful, and with beneful.com we used the template approach. It required a much smaller investment than if we built the site from scratch.

Q: You have your interactive team centralized, but a lot of CPG manufacturers have now decentralized their teams. Will you decentralize?
A: I think our group over time will get pushed back into the rest of the organization.

Q: What do you do offline to drive customers to your sites?
A: Probably not enough. It's very difficult just to get the URL published in a TV spot. Also with our packaging we could definitely do more. It's an opportunity area for us.