INSTRUCTIONS: READ THE FOLLOWING SITUATION AND ANSWER THEQUESTIONS ARISING FOR THE CASE ANALYSIS.
“STONYFIELD FARM GOES TO THE BLOGS”
The Stonyfield Farm story is a kind of legend. In 1983, friendsand social activists Gary Hirschberg and Samuel Kaymen started witha good yogurt recipe, seven cows, and a dream. They established anorganic yogurt company in Wilton, New Hampshire, to take advantageof baby boomers' growing concerns about natural foods and health,and to revitalize the dairy industry in New England. StonyfieldFarms has grown to become the third largest organic company in theworld, with annual sales of more than $ 50 million in 50 states. Itproduces more than 18 million glasses of yogurt each month.
Stonyfield Farrn's spectacular growth is attributable in part toits ability to offer a product to a special niche market - peoplewho value healthy food and want to protect the environment. Thesevalues ??have become part of the "personality" of the company.Stonyfleld promises to use only natural ingredients and milk thathas not been produced with antibiotics, synthetic growth hormones,or pesticides or toxic fertilizers. The company donates 10 percentof its profits each year to projects that help protect or restorethe planet.
As the company expanded, management feared that it might losetouch with its loyal and committed customer base. Advertising basedon traditional media was expensive and did not really help thecompany to "connect" with the kind of people it was trying toreach. This company prefers word-of-mouth techniques that deliverits message to customers in ways more compatible with its popular,organic, and activist-friendly image.
Stonyfield has multiple active email newsletters with more than500,000 subscribers, and typically posts messages promoting causesthat he supports on the tops of his yogurt glasses. Now she'sturning to blogging to further personalize her customerrelationships and reach even more people. Inspired by Howard Dean'spresidential campaign and Dean's blogger tutorials, CEO Hirschbergbecame convinced that Stonyfield could use blogging to create amore personal relationship with consumers, different from thetraditional sales relationship. "Blogs give us what we call ahandshake with consumers" and "a little more access to us
Stonyfield now publishes two separate blogs on his website — Baby Babble and Bovine Bugle. At one time Stonyfield was running five blogs, but decided to withdraw three of them because they weren't attracting enough readers. Baby Babble provides a forum for Stonyfield employees and other parents of young children to meet and discuss child development and balance work with the family. Stonyfield created that blog because baby yogurts are one of its most popular product lines, and parenting blogs seem to appeal to a large number of readers. The Bovine Bugle provides reports about Jonathan's Organic Dairy Farm. Gates in Franklin, Vermont, a member of the organic cooperative that supplies milk for Stonyfield products.
This blog sparks a large number of nostalgic comments from readers who remember their childhood on a farm. As organic food grows in importance, these blogs help the company showcase the aspects that make it different from other brands and invite customers to help them in this endeavor. Stonyfield continually posts new content to each of the blogs. Readers can subscribe to any of them and automatically receive updates when available. And of course they can reply to these posts.
The benefits of blogging for Stonyfield have not yet been quantified so far, but management is confident there are real benefits. Blogs have created a positive response for the Stonyfield brand by providing readers with something that inspires them or sparks their interest -If blogs give new information to readers, inspire them to protect the environment or ask them for opinions, the administration believes that They will remember the brand when they are in front of the yogurt shelves in the supermarket or grocery store and that they will take a Stonyfleld product instead of a competitor when it is time to choose. Stonyfield has a fairly large website. Blogs offer a way to highlight some of the content on the Web that would otherwise be lost. This, too, helps drive some blog readers to buy Stonyfield products.
IV. What benefits does the introduction of an intranet and extranet bring to a company? Indicate and explain.
