• by Larissa Faw , April 29, 2014

Dairy producer Tillamook, like many emerging brands, has the challenge of fragmented distribution. In the Pacific Northwest, for instance, all Tillamook products are widely available, but in places like Texas, only its cheeses are available.

Now, the brand and its digital agency of record Hello Design are addressing this challenge with a new Web site that delivers customized messages based on user data. The Tillamook.com visitor in Seattle is likely to see the new ice cream bars that are available in local stores, whereas a user in Dallas will see cheese messaging since only cheese products are available in Texas. 

"Essentially, users want information they care about, and what’s relevant to them," says Scott Arenstein, Partner/Account Director, Hello Design. "In the Northwest, it may be more important to communicate new product information, while in Texas, they need to hit harder with Tillamook's history of being a farmer co-op." 

"Big data can be a misunderstood topic, but in many cases, it just makes targeting more relevant," says Arenstein. "We are not touching personal data. Our contextual engine taps into data points like geo-location, time of day, and weather and serves contextual relevant content."

This customized content also influences the recipe section, Tillamook Kitchen. Hello Design, which has worked with Tillamook for five years, solicited recipes from well-known chefs and restaurants throughout the country to showcase on the site, yet visitors receive recipes tailored to their region. Southern California visitors receive Grilled Cheese Sandwich recipes from local chefs, while San Francisco residents receive recipes from their local diners.

Arenstein says one benefit to this recipe customization is to enable visitors to easily visit the actual restaurant where the recipes originated.

Tillamook's Web site will continue to introduce new features in the coming months. "One reason Nike+ FuelBand didn't become more popular is that it failed to evolve. It is important that we get smarter over time," says Arenstein. 

Meanwhile, Tillamook is also building awareness through a multicity bus tour that samples its products at area grocery stores. The three buses currently on the road each promote Tillamook's three product lines: cheese, yogur and ice cream.