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How TIC Helped Godrej Transform a Food Blog
Top-notch Publishing Platform with a 2500% Increase
in Traffic

About the Client: The Godrej Group is one of India's most respected business conglomerates. Revenues of over USD 4.1 billion and a global consumer base of 1.1 billion make the Group a high-performing business organisation. From aerospace and defence, appliances, food and agriculture, chemicals, to financial services, engineering, home & personal care, security solutions and real estate, the Group's business spans a wide spectrum of industries.

The Client Need

The Godrej Group started hosting a blog called 'Vikhroli Cucina' in 2015 to establish the brand's association with the world of food. The platform was successful in attracting a lot of relevant traffic to it. Food influencers, bloggers, food enthusiasts, chefs, home chefs, media, and hospitality students flocked to consume the content published by Vikhroli Cucina.

Five years down the line, the team at Godrej, felt the need to transform Vikhroli Cucina from a one-way publishing blog to a more expansive publishing platform, where the blog's content consumers would also become active content contributors and the website would attract a larger audience.

The target audience would remain the same: food influencers, bloggers, food enthusiasts, chefs, home chefs, media, and hospitality students.

The intent was to take Vikhroli Cucina to the next level and in doing so, the brand would achieve the following strategic objectives:

  •  Give people in the food business space, something of great value
  •  Engage people from the food space in a more tangible manner
  •  Strengthen the association of brand Godrej with the food business and improve brand recall
  •  Enhance the reputation of brand Godrej as a thoughtleader in the food business

To achieve the brand's communication objectives, the team at Godrej, engaged their long-time content partner, TIC, to transform Vikhroli Cucina from a blog to a publishing platform.

Implementation Challenges

The transformation of a blog to a publishing site had its fair share of challenges:

  •  Creating a delightful digital experience for a diverse and disparate audience: The platform needed to create an intuitive and delightful digital experience for a diverse and disparate group of people ranging from celebrities to amateurs, and from the digitally-savvy to the digitally challenged. The platform also needed to engage users and encourage them to contribute content.
  •  Getting the right people for the UX/UI study: It was critical to identify and engage the right people from the target audience to conduct focus group discussions to get the UX/UI study right for the new site.
  •  Ensuring a steady content pipeline: The platform needed a smart content strategy to ensure that the pipeline would never dry up because now there were dependencies on users to generate content.
  •  Going live within a tight deadline: The site needed to go live within 15 weeks in time for an event.

The TIC Approach and Solution

TIC used its strategic 4D approach to discover client and audience needs, define personas and user journeys, draw up the content strategy, design and develop the site and finally measure the impact of the transformation. Here are some key highlights of our solution:

The tell-all UI/UX study: A comprehensive UI/UX study was conducted. The study involved focus group discussions with a cohort from the target audience. The real-world study was complemented with simulation studies done on the existing site. The results revealed the exact user journeys and their content needs that helped in creating personalised user experiences for each segment.

A fool-proof, smart content strategy: Content was the fuel that would keep the Vikhroli Cucina site alive and kicking. It was critical to develop a strategy to make sure that the content pipeline never dried up. Also, the content needed to be fresh, topical, interesting to all the visitors of the site with the ability to position Godrej as a thoughtleader in the food space.

Team TIC came up with an editorial strategy that included the following content pillars:

  •  Topical themes (e.g. seasons, festivals, year-end celebrations, Covid, etc)
  •  Food-related observance days (e.g. World Milk Day, World Chocolate Day, etc)
  •  Stories based on viral content
  •  Ideas that would align with food trends from the Godrej Food Trends Report
  •  News and press releases

The content ideas were then mapped to the various interests/sections developed from the UX/UI study and the user-generated content would be added to the calendar of ideas. Additionally, team TIC managed the bulk of content creation for the site.

The Results and Impact

After a rigorous two-month process of developing the strategy, creating the content, creating the designs and developing the technology, www.vikhrolicucina.com was launched in February 2020 at an event that had the who's who of the food world in attendance.

Within a year of its launch, Vikhroli Cucina has provided a thriving space for food brands, influencers, chefs, home chefs, bloggers and food lovers to engage and collaborate. Celebrated people from the food world who have associated with Vikhroli Cucina include Tara Deshpande, Chef Vicky Ratnani, Chef Harpal Singh Sokhi, Chef Ranveer Brar, Kalyan Karmakar, Chef Varun Inamdar, Rakhee Vaswani, etc.

Here's a quick glance at some of the content that visitors have loved:

The website performance numbers have soared after the transformation validating the content and UI/UX strategy that was developed by TIC. Here's a look at the numbers:

  •  Website traffic has increased by a whopping 2500%
  •  Page Views have increased by 1500%

After the transformation, the platform has won two prestigious awards under Best UI/UX website categories at Afaqs Digies awards 2020 and Afaqs Marketers Excellence Awards 2021.

Testimonial

quote
Our objective was to create top-of-mind recall for brand Godrej to enhance its reputation in the food space. For this, we conceived a pan-India online platform www.vikhrolicucina.com where food experts, influencers and enthusiasts could engage, network and collaborate.

To bring these varied audiences together, TIC created a comprehensive UI/UX strategy and designed vikhrolicucina.com as a publishing site hosting rich multimedia content. What makes the site unique is the exciting mix of original, curated and user generated content that builds a new experience around food. It also shines a spotlight on India's leading food influencers and chefs.

Team TIC understood our vision and translated it into an exciting experience. We are delighted with the site."
Sujit Patil, Vice President and Head - Corporate Brand and Communications, Godrej Industries Limited and Associate Companies

Looking for a business-friendly website that is also appealing and interactive? Please get in touch with us at enquiry@ticworks.com