Maggi

Overview: Nestle is a leading food supplier in Europe that manages many popular brands, one of which is Maggi. In order to promote the Maggi brand in Germany, one of the largest European markets, Maggi created a separate company - Maggi Kochstudio. Maggi Kochstudio's two-fold mission is to create a loyal community of consumers and to educate these potential customers on the many uses of Maggi products for cooking. For this purpose, Maggi Kochstudio has created a studio in Frankfurt to serve as the heart of Maggi Kochstudio Clubs, where consumers may experiment and share their cooking ideas.

Business Challenge: The goal of the project was to bring the spirit of the Maggi Club community to the Internet, where Maggi Kochstudio marketing efforts could be refined. Additionally, Maggi intended the community site to drive eCommerce revenue. The site was required to serve the growing needs of Maggi Kochstudio, withstanding a million page impressions per month.

Business Solution: The site was designed with many features that would appeal to the Maggi Kochstudio Club members. Features included a recipe bank, wellness magazine, multimedia cooking courses, seasonal calendars, cooking tips and tricks, a nestle product database, a brochure ordering service, and entertainment services including games. Collaboration functionality was central to creating a true community site and included such items as discussion boards, a forum, recipe evaluation threads, personalization services, and a member's only private cooking book. As a core driver to eCommerce revenue, the Maggi Shop was created. The Maggi Shop features items across all facets of the cooking genre. Together with the live web-cams from the Frankfurt-based studio, this site expresses the spirit of Maggi Kochstudio.

Technical Solution: For system implementation, DDGlobal (Ukraine) engineers chose the J2EE platform. To meet scalability requirements, the Maggi site was built on a Windows 2000 Advanced Server operation system, Resin Servlet Runner application server, and an Oracle 8i database. The choice of the J2EE platform and a set of open-source supplemental packages reduced the cost of the development process and created a scalable and robust system. The system consists of more than 1000 code classes and 1200 web pages. This platform provides room for dramatic audience and user growth without any changes to the server environment.

In order for Maggi to keep the site content fresh, a Content Management System (CMS) was developed. The user friendly CMS allowed content managers to update content without any technical training. Additionally, it provided easy editing of Discussion Boards entries and user and mailing lists maintenance. Finally, the system provides rigid user rights management to ensure site security.

Outcome of Engagement: The delivered software solution was installed on the customer's equipment and successfully launched. The results of the new marketing and community channel combined with outstanding software quality development have exceeded all expectations. During the first two months following the launch of the site, web users have skyrocketed above a million page impressions per month, a milestone projected to be reached only after one year of usage. Additionally, after six months the audience has grown to two million page impressions. eCommerce revenue has grown faster than expected inspiring Maggi Kochstudio to further invest in feature/functionality build outs.

 

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