Webwatch Article
April 25, 2005
http://www.brandchannel.com/features_webwatch.asp?ww_id=224

Barilla — Chow Bella

Thanks to the randomness of life, religion or spirituality will always find devotees. Most people need something to believe in, and that belief sytem generally influences purchasing decisions. Luckily there's a host of brands ready to capitalize on that basic human need for comfort. Cup of Tazo anyone?

Barilla America, Inc., the US-based division of the Barilla Group, launched in 1996 and claims to be the Number One national brand of pasta today. The fact that the company has been run by four generations of Barillas is an intrinsic part of the brand identity, lending a homemade vibe to a mass-produced product.

With taglines like "The Taste of Italy," the Barilla brand has found success in its positioning as an arbiter of Italian culinary traditions, adding a highbrow sense of quality to pasta—a commodity with traditionally low price points. According to its website, Barilla seeks to "…Inspire everyone to share in the values that have guided us for more than a century—a love of life, a devotion to quality, and a respect for tradition."

All of Barilla's brand messaging adheres to the principles of quality and authenticity with an eye toward healthful principles. The current popularity of low-carb diets and cooking, especially in the United States, has cast an unfavorable eye on the consumption of pasta, placing Barilla under fire simply by nature of its leading product line. We visited Barilla's US website to see how it handles this challenge while keeping the brand message as tantalizing as a large steaming bowl of rigatoni.

Like its products, BarillaUS.com is easy to digest and delivers in flavor and quality. Designed with a look and feel that replicates its recognizable blue packaging, the site doesn't incorporate any crazy or elaborate bells and whistles, but is richly enhanced in value-added content that appropriately conveys Barilla's message at every turn.

The Our Products page has lengthy copy (perhaps too lengthy) explaining the benefits of pasta while effectively delivering the Barilla message of quality. Each product line page offers consumers a number of practical ways to use the product in alternative recipes, such as soups, which is good marketing. Also, a Perfect Pairing window appears recommending a Barilla sauce for each brand of pasta, maximizing the opportunity to introduce visitors to a different product line and thus further promote the brand.

The position as an arbiter of Italian cooking is maintained throughout the site with features like the Perfect Pairing page, which explains the art of pasta and all of the intricate details involved in its preparation, while recommending the appropriate sauce for each recipe.

The content is rich and relevant to the product and its cooking audience. As with any food site, recipes are a huge element of its composition, and BarillaUS.com makes a wealth of them easy to find with both a search function and a pull-down menu.

Lifestyle and Entertaining is a heavily branded area that talks about living "La cucina Italiana" (underlining a lifestyle theme to the messaging) and how great Italian food celebrates life, family and friends. To further enhance this area, Barilla wisely aligns with an online wine vendor to provide users with wine recommendations.

All in all, Barilla offers a pretty tasty site. Devoid of fancy schmancy Flash animated illustrations but full of solid content that is well mapped out, the site effectively provides visitors with a large amount of value added content. It takes an appropriately practical approach to exposing visitors to new product lines, while thoroughly educating them on pasta and the art of Italian cooking in the face of an opposing trend (lo-carb diets). At each and every turn, Barilla creates positive associations, connecting its brand with more than just pasta to promote a buoyant, joyful Italian lifestyle. Thus, it does a great job of convincing its consumers that its brand tastes best.

Vivian Manning-Schaffel is a freelance writer who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

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