Thule

Thule Case Study

Thule, the leading sports and utility transportation company in the world, knew they needed a cohesive voice between their international websites. In addition, their current website didn’t showcase their brand, allow for e-commerce (in the U.S.) or help consumers find the products they were looking for with a best-in-class fit finder. Increasing competition globally made switching gears online a priority.

Approach

HDC partnered with Thule with the goal of combining two existing websites into a single global platform that would deliver the Thule brand experience online, across the world. Creating a unified voice meant developing a powerful online brand message strategy, a content rich website, a customized shopping tool, inspiring videos and photography, comprehensive search engine optimization and a shared organizational vision to carry the load.

Solution

With Thule, possibilities were virtually endless. To make sense of them, we designed the new thule.com—delivering the right possibilities to you. In order to do this we created:

  • Thule United—a core team of Thule U.S., Europe / Asia and HDC to achieve consensus on message strategy, concepts and execution
  • Powerful brand strategy renewal platform
  • Product Fit Guide—customized customer shopping tool
  • Lifestyle videos and photography
  • Comprehensive SEM
  • Dynamic online presence in over 14 languages
  • Content-rich Thule Corporate website
  • Easy, integrated e-commerce platform in the U.S.
  • Brand platform for Thule Professional, USA
  • Three-Year Vision Development, which solidified a shared organizational vision for Thule.com and the Thule Corporate online strategy

In addition to HDC's strategy work, research, creative design and development of Thule.com, with the help of CMS partner Sitecore we delivered a complete technology strategy and solution that included:

  • Stibo for the PIM database
  • Shopatron for e-commerce
  • Bing Maps for the Dealer Locator
  • RightNow for the CRM
  • Coveo Enterprise Search for site search
  • Sitecore’s Web Forms for Marketers for various site forms
  • Clay Tablet for translation services
  • Sitecore’s Staging Module for web farm publishing
  • Sitecore’s SEO Module for optimization review and QA

Results

Since its launch, we found together that Thule really is all about possibilities. The new Thule.com has become an online destination that delivers Thule to the world. Since launch, site traffic in North America has increased—up 145%.

We’ve also seen these wonderful results:

  • Thule.com awarded Sitecore’s 2009 Best Consumer Goods Site award
  • Thule.com experienced:
  • 140% increase in website visitors in North America alone
  • 886% increase in search volume due to optimized keywords
  • 226% increase in conversion rate from Thule Fit Guide to purchase online
  • Resulting in online and offline success:

    Thule's business overall is up 22% in 2010 Rack sales are up 80% June 2010 marked as the best month of sales in the history of the company

Launch Website

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