Drinking up the best beverage Web site
www.BACARDI.com is the place to
meet partypeople worldwide. Fresh party updates from all over the
world, a state-of the-art DJ mixing console, cocktails to enjoy and
to go, community communication tools and naturally – everything you
ever wanted to know about the world’s most popular fine rums. Pure
flash, pure spirit, pure entertainment!
And naturally – for grown-up’s only.
Contents are arranged around the brand’s grown competences. Drinks,
Music and people coming together to party and have a good time. Far
away from secluded islands BACARDI happens now and in the middle of
a young urban lifestyle. But even though the surrounding might have
changed - the feeling still is totally BACARDI.
BACARDI.com is an achievement because it encapsulates nearly all
available web technologies in one seamless branded presentation. The
core hurdles revolved around the fact that BACARDI.com had to be
extremely "dynamic". The site had to be launched in 11 different
languages (including two that are Cyrillic), and be easily
maintainable. The site also had to be very multimedia heavy without
requiring the user to have a T1 for bandwidth. To ensure maximum
brand appeal Macromedia Flash technology has been used for the
frontend design.
To solve the dynamic aspects and the need for multiple languages and
to allow frequent and fast content updates the site is completely
data driven and administrable via a Web Browser interface. An entire
XML messaging system had to be developed to allow the Flash movies
to communicate with the database. Most of the content, even images,
is stored in the backend database.
Because of the amount of dynamic content the site was designed to be
very modular. Rather than requiring a user to download the entire
BACARDI.com flash movie in one huge download, BACARDI.com delivers
flash "modules" depending on what portion of the site is actually
visited. For instance if you never visit the "Learn" section, you'll
never have to download the "Learn" flash modules speeding your
movement through BACARDI.com. Anyway – for a really slowly connected
user also an HTML version is provided in many languages.
The site is completely build on Microsoft .Net 2003 technology and
using SQLServer as database. A loadbalanced system ensures failsafe
availability and high performance. backend modules are capsuled as
small application classes (.Net assemblies) and thereby enable
speedy implementation – may it be eCards, galleries with image
upload possibilities, user polls, music sampling engines, mobile
features like SMS and tout- and banner management – BACARDI.com uses
their own individually designed advanced application pool to
outstand from competititors. Enterprise applications like
Communigate Pro mailserver are connected to frontend flash
applications like the BATClub community and offer individual bat-mail.com
accounts for BACARDI fans.
BACARDI.com is a truly global brandsite but also offers many
opportunities for local markets to offer their individual
promotional contents and communicate corresponding events. Each
market can have their own homepage flash billboards and videos and
event calendar as well as the possibility to activate individual
touts that extend the global content by external promotional
microsites and local brandsites via Web-CMS administration. Thereby
the brand experience for an individual local user always stays very
close to the local communication strategy and the site can be
adapted very easily to offline advertising strategies. This does not
only increase the brand impact but also prolonges the sites
lifecycle.
Besides these options to fit the site to the local markets needs &
campaigns, www.bacardi.com also
serves as a gateway into the different sub-brandsites like
www.bacardi8.com,
www.bacardi-breezer.com,
www.bacardi-limon.com and
others more – each representing a unique brand personality for a
selected target group and each carrying the spirit of BACARDI in
each pixel.
Awards for www.bacardi.com:
- Finalist Andy Awards, New York
- Shortlist Cannes Cyber Lions, Cannes
- FAB Award Alcoholic Beverages, FABulous Award Multimedia, London
- Best Beverage Website, WebAward
- Finalist London International Advertising and Design Awards,
London
- Bronze World Medal New York Festivals, New York
|
|