Don't Visit Our Website

Awhile back I had to give a presentation on experience planning to a bunch of traditional advertisers. In preparation for this, I asked the audience to email me examples of bad websites so that we could discuss what it was about them that made them bad. One of them was so bad that I was sure it was a mistake -- that it was a relic of a company long gone out of business. However, as it turns out, not only is the company still in business, but they actually promote their website on the product, or at least, they promote the fact that they have the website, and then trust that people wouldn't bother to check it out.

The product, Toast 'Ems, is almost identical to Pop Tarts. I'm sure someone with a more distinguished palate can tell the difference, but I'm at a loss.

At any rate, I chanced across them as I was walking by the dollar aisle at Albertson's, a grocery chain here in the deep south. I looked at the package, and on the back noticed the invitation, "Visit our website at www.toastem.com." (Please note: You MUST put in the "www.")

Go ahead. I'll wait.

It's fairly generic. Besides the gaudy animated gifs on the home page, the main sections are:

• At a Glance
• Milestones
• Vision
• Products
• Employment Opportunities
• Questions and Comments

Now, I don't have any idea what their marketing plan is or how they're doing financially. It would be a colossal mistake to assume that, just because their website is "horrible," they are in a poor position. We have thousands of years of history to prove that the Internet isn't the only way to make money.

I bring this up only to point out why they can get away with building a bad website. The reason is this:

Their audience doesn't care.

Granted, the website doesn't give them any reason to care, but even if they did, what is the likelihood that, while eating toaster pastries for breakfast before school, kids are going to see the website, decide they just have to visit at that moment to see what the company has to offer?

It is so statistically small that it really isn't worth considering. The world doesn't operate that way. People don't operate that way, because they don't care nearly as much about your brand as you do.

I have no doubt that the Internet could be used in this company's marketing mix effectively. For not a whole lot of money, they could hire a student to redesign the site they have to make it more aesthetically pleasing, if nothing else.

However, this company has decided not to jump into a space to invest in something that, even if they did everything right, may not produce a return that couldn't be beat by investing in other things.

If nothing else, I have to admire them for not thinking so much of themselves that they have to overwrite, overproduce, and overspend -- just because everyone else seems to be doing it. They have a Web address. And (in the name of made-up statistics) for 99.9999% of the people who are exposed to the address, that will be enough, because only .0001% are going to bother to visit, and they won't care that it sucks. - Cam Beck

Comments

[Paul Herring]

I'm pretty sure that this site was programmed with a Commodore 64. Maybe that was all they could do with the space on their tape cassete drives?

For those under 35:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64

[Steve Woodruff]

Cam, if you search diligently on the site, you'll see that they talk about being Quality Bakers since 1923. Which was approximately when the site was designed...

[Valeria Maltoni]

Your post caught my eye because I am working on the presentation for MarketingProfs B2B forum next week. It's about how to make your Web site (not the tarts) sticky ;-)

[John Herrington]

I'm just amazed that toast 'ems can juggle and do magic tricks. My pop tarts sure as heck never did that.

I like your take on this, Cam. We have to always put things in perspective.

[Gannon Beck]

You’re right that the company can be profitable without a great website and that customers won't care. Toast ‘Ems should redo the site though to be consistent with its own stated value to, "Strive for excellence in everything we do."

The website is inconsistent with the company's values. Employees can sniff out hypocrisy and I'm willing to bet the website plants a seed of problems in the culture of Toast 'Ems. Why would any employee "strive for excellence" after viewing this?

[Cam Beck]

Paul - The moving company lost our Commodore 64 when we shipped out to Berlin, so we replaced it with a blazing-fast IBM-Compatible computer with 640K of RAM!! (I'm under 35 by the way, though just barely)

Steve - Well at the TIME it was pretty innovative. Al Gore hadn't even gotten around to being born yet, much less creating the Interwebs.

Valeria - The tarts, I understand, are pretty sticky, too. :)

John - I tried to juggle them myself. Mine crumble and break apart. Plus, see comment above to Valeria. They're sticky and tough to clean up. I advice against it.

Gannon - The sad thing is that, even if they wanted only a bare-bones site like they have now, and their resources might call for something like that, they could get it done on the cheap by hiring a student. It wouldn't be that hard to improve (aesthetically) what they have -- even if they didn't want to commit to making it actually useful.

On the flip side, my guess is that their employees don't really care about it, either. The "strive for excellence" phrase is just something companies say. It's possible no one there really believes it, and they may not even think outside of their own little worlds of responsibility.

That may be a sad commentary on the state of Dilbert-esque corporate affairs, but given how easy (and cheap) it would be to improve what they have, can you come up with another plausible explanation?

[Jay Ehret]

Even though you warned us, I have to admit I was not prepared for what waited on the other side of the click. I noticed that the most recent item on the Milestone page was in 1997. I'm guessing that's the last time the site was updated.

Curiously, a web developer position is absent from their employment opportunity page.

[Gannon Beck]

"The 'strive for excellence' phrase is just something companies say. It's possible no one there really believes it, and they may not even think outside of their own little worlds of responsibility."

It's probable not one believes it. Some companies have values that they try to adhere to and some don't. The best ones doe. If values are important they should be reflected in in the website and in every piece of communications a company puts out. Otherwise, something else gets communicated.

Through its example, Toast -'Ems is not only communicating that you don't have to strive for excellence, but also that you don't have to say what you mean. You can give lip service to excellence but do something else. That's the value they are communicating with this, not to customers, but to employees. From a human resources perspective, it could prove disastrous.

[Cam Beck]

For what it's worth, I like the product. And for $1, it's the best value I got at the grocery store that day. Plus, it gave me ammo for a blog post. Can't say the same about Pop-Tarts. :)