Building Community for Extra Virgin Olive Oil Lovers
Frerecks: “Claude, can you tell us a little about California Olive Ranch?”
Weiller: “We’re North America’s largest producer of extra virgin olive oil and the world’s largest producer using the system of cultivation called Super High Density Cultivation. Our goal is to do for California olive oil what Napa Valley did for California wines in the 1970s. We harvest all our olives mechanically, not by hand. This enables our olives to be crushed into oil much faster which in turn produces more consistent and fresher tasting extra virgin olive oils. Our process is also more effective at preserving the full flavor of the olives – as if they just came off the tree. Increasingly, world-renowned top restaurant chefs use our oils in their dishes as both an ingredient and to finish them off. They drizzle it over grilled fish or roasted vegetables, for example. And they use it for cooking. Home cooks do the same. The oils have garnered numerous awards.”
Frerecks: “Why Blog about Olive Oil?”
Weiller: “A lot of people like extra virgin olive oil … make that love extra virgin olive oil! EVOO is the top grade of olive oil available. And an Olive Oil blog helps us create a two-way dialogue with our customers, something you can’t get with traditional media such as newspapers and radio. The Web also is a platform to market and advertise at a depth we never could with traditional resources. It’s 24-7 marketing and advertising. And it’s done in a way that allows consumers and chefs to seek us out, instead of the other way around.”
Frerecks: “Has anything in particular led you to believe your target audience is online?”
Weiller: “Yes. We believe there is a food-loving, health-conscious crowd online seeking out new information all the time. These people want new recipes, tips for using extra virgin olive oil, health information, etc. The huge popularity of food-related Web sites such as Epicurious and food blogs such as Orangette and Chocolate & Zucchini are a testament to that.”
Frerecks: “Why, in your eyes, has online become important versus traditional advertising opportunities?”
Weiller: “I love traditional media such as newspapers. But, unfortunately, they’re dying at an alarming rate. They’re also not as effective at reaching our consumer and our chefs who increasingly turn online for their information. The online world, by contrast, is growing by leaps and bounds. It’s where young people go to get their news and information. It’s the same for Baby Boomers on up. It also allows a company such as ours to tap into a critical distribution channel and an emerging marketplace. The online world also makes it possible to reach the broadest number of eyeballs and to aggregate that audience.”
Frerecks: “Any specific strategies?”
Weiller: “We’ve actually chosen to create two blogs, one olive oil blog for consumers and another for chefs. Both love extra virgin olive oil. But the two audiences are very different and have fundamentally different needs and use blogs for different purposes. Chefs create meals to be served to paying customers. They want to understand everything they can about how we make the oil, store that oil, and what makes it taste so good. Chefs have also told us they’re interested in sharing recipes with each other. They have a culinary knowledge far deeper than your average consumer, though many a ‘foodie’ knows a great deal. So we want to address our EVOO Chef Blog to that kind of audience. That may mean offering up different recipes or writing about the same recipe in different ways – i.e., we’ll do a bit more explanation for consumers by offering information that chefs already take for granted.”
Frerecks: “As for olive oil marketplace coverage, what do you intend to put out there?”
Weiller: “We want to make our blogs very useful for our target audiences – a place where each audience can go to get practical information and tips about EVOO. So we’ll offer: recipes; tips about using extra virgin olive oil and storing olive oil; information about how to taste extra virgin olive oil [it’s an eye-opener]; and relevant health information. We’ll provide links to our products and recipes on our site, as well as outgoing links that will hook people up with useful information.”
Frerecks: “Are you seeing any positive indications yet?”
Weiller: “Oh yes, our blogs were visible in the search result pages almost immediately. It’s an encouraging step toward our goal, which is to build community for Extra Virgin Olive Oil [EVOO] Lovers.”
Contributed by Chris Frereckschris@kineticknowledge.com
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Comments
Diets including olive oil such as Mediterranean diets have long been known to be beneficial for the general good health and even the brain. The rest of the world is just now catching on!