In search of FMCG sites

Where are the sites for the top ten brands in Ireland?

— Published February 1st, 2004 | by David Moore

Fast moving consumer goods - FMCGs to marketers - are the stalwart of the supermarket and the cornershop. Tea and crisps might not sound like obvious subjects for websites, but if companies are aiming to build a brand on every bus, billboard and TV screen in the country, then an online presence gives them the chance to provide information in a more targetted way than an offline campaign.

So we took Checkout magazine's top ten retail brands in Ireland, and had a look at all of their sites:

1) Coca Cola

When we first visited, the site [http://www.cocacola.ie] offered information on an outdated competition, and a selection of broken links. When we went back, it wasn't there at all.

2) Avonmore Milk

We explored this site [http://www.avonmore.ie] in detail last month, and were not impressed.

3) Premier Milk

Like Avonmore, this is a Glanbia brand, aimed more at Dublin consumers, apparently. But there's no reason a consumer should have to know that, or look four levels down in the corporate site [http://www.glanbia.ie] to find information about it.

4) Tayto Crisps

After a false start (the madly yellow [http://www.tayto.com] site is for Northern Ireland's version of Taytos), we found our way to [http://www.taytocrips.ie]. A solid (if unnecessarily Flash-based) consumer site, with a range of information and an online store for hungry ex-pats. We checked, and they do deliver to Belarus.

5) Lucozade Energy

[http://www.lucozade.ie] invites us to tune in on May 6th to see if Lara survives. That's May 6th last year, we presume. There's a screensaver download option, but nothing else. Given the high-profile TV and poster campaigns from the company, it's a surprising ommission that there's no online presence.

6) 7UP

Like Tayto Crisps, 7UP is a C&C brand in Ireland, but there's no online home for Fido Dido that we could find.

7) Lyons Tea

Part of the global giant Unilever Bestfoods, Unilever have an interesting approach to online marketing in Ireland. Their Living Online site [http://www.livingonline.ie] site is aimed specifically at mothers, offering advice, coupons and information, but playing down the fact that the site is run by Unilever. Which means there's no upfront list of their products, and if you didn't know that Lyons was a Unilever brand you'd not find your way to Living Online in the first place.

8) Pampers

The Irish URL [http://www.pampers.ie] redirects to pampers.com - giving access to all the Pampers sites worldwide. There isn't an Irish presence, though.

9) Denny Prepacked

Denny's is part of the Kerry Group, but their site [http://www.kerrygroup.com] only offers corporate-focused information on 'porkmeat products', which isn't likely to send you racing to the fridge for a sambo.

10) Goodfellas

Produced by Green Isle foods, there's no dedicated website for the frozen pizzas.

So of the top ten retail brands in Ireland, only Tayto Crisps have a decent site. Given the amount of money spent marketing these brands in other ways this seems hard to credit. It might be argued that they're not the sort of products that warrant an online presence, but a look at the UK equivalents of some of these brands suggests otherwise.

Lucozade, Coke, Walkers Crisps and Pampers all have sites across the water, and the situation is particularly interesting with sausages. The Kerry Group also owns the UK sausage makers Wall's, who have an excellent consumer site at [http://www.bangers.co.uk].

It seems that Irish marketers are missing a trick in not providing a useful online companion to their offline marketing

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