Part of my job as an Art Director is to find clever ways to deliver mundane brand messages. to attract consumers to consider my client's products. One of the tools a brand should have in their marketing toolbox is a well-designed website.
Websites that are poorly designed will not only perform poorly and have sub-optimal Google Analytics data, it will hurt a business. In contrast, a website that is thoughtfully built, will reflect its results in the amount of repeat users and in most cases, number of sales.
Design is not just about how it looks and feels like.
Design is how it works. — Steve Jobs
Let's take a look at Dasani® water.
Dasani® water is part of the Coca Cola company. They pride themselves in their crisp tasting, purified water, and plant based bottles. Their website demonstrate just that. As soon as I arrived at their homepage I was stopped dead on my track because of its strikingly refreshing design. It displays huge hero shots of the products, keeping the surrounding layout thirst quenching-ly clean. It utilizes water splashes, droplets, and stream in such an elegant way that you can't help but be soothed by it. They keep the amount of colors and fonts used to a minimum—which is crucial in designing an effective website because it resulted in less visual clutter.
The Dasani® Sparkling page—Dasani® clearly understands their purpose and core values well evidenced by this refreshing website layout
Dasani® also offers their website in two language: English and Spanish. The option is accessible through the language button placed right next to their main navigation.
The Espanol button will take you to a version of the website that is completely built in spanish. You can opt-in or out of the two languages through the same button
The presence of this bilingual button shows Dasani's effort to reach the hispanic demographic of their target market. It shows that they understand the demographic is a large part of their business and wants to create a relationship that would cater specifically to them. It shows goodwill, and goodwill creates advocates.
Dasani® make sure to put forth their most important messages up front. Content they want their consumers to know about them and also content that might be relevant to their customers. Every links on their website are fully functioning and pages are accessible within one clicks. Another evidence of good UX at work.
Environmentally and socially friendly
Dasani® bottles are made of up to 30% plant-based material that replaces the fossil-based resources used unconventional PET plastic that makes them 100% recyclable. Furthermore, Dasani came up with a recycling initiative called Twist®. Their innovative bottle design can be twisted down to half its original size to reduce the amount of overflowing recycling bin. Not to mention, it is a fun way to remind you to recycle your empty bottles! Dasani® made sure that this environmentally friendly message does not get lost in their website, and made Sustainability part of the site's main navigation.
Speaking of being friendly, Dasani's website also includes social media widgets that links out to their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube page. Each link opens on a new tab so that user don't have to lose their place on the main website—another great UX practice!
Overall..
I find Dasani's website to be truly engaging. You would think being a brand that sells something so mundane like water, their website would be a little ho-hum. But they have proved that great understanding of their own brand and of the marketing medium (in this case, the website) can and will result in great things.
What happens when you don't understand how to utilize the tools in your Marketing Toolbox
They have definitely turned me into an advocate. Now if you'll excuse me, all this writing makes me a little thirsty. 'Til next week!
