Nestlé: Perfecting Fitnesse for purpose

Appropriate use of a Flash-driven feature engages people with the brand message.

The Site

“The Perfect Fit” is the tag-line for food giant Nestlé’s new breakfast cereal, Fitnesse, and also the name of the brand website launched as part of the product’s introduction to the UK.

Fitnesse targets women, and the website offers a free “Expert” evaluation and advice on diet and getting in shape. It also has a 3D feature that lets women create an image of their current shape and set it alongside a second Perfect Fit figure. The feature works by selecting three basic body measurements – hips, height and weight – which shape the first of two body images. You can then adjust the perfect fit to the shape you would like to be.

However, links to the feature from the home page first take visitors to an Online Survey section that must be completed in full before they can access the image-maker.

The Takeaway

Nestlé is making appropriate use of a Flash-driven feature to engage people with the Fitnesse brand message rather than simply liven up the presentation – though the game-level 3D imagery is at first sight a little spooky.

What makes the feature doubly interesting is its use as an incentive to fill in the online survey. The survey questions point to a Nestlé strategy of using the site for focused market research as much as for relationship building. As such it is looking to maximise the number of survey responses the site gathers. Entries in the site’s prize draw, for example, are survey-dependent, but in the 3D feature Nestlé has found a clever way of ‘hooking’ the visitor so that they will tolerate a compulsory detour before arriving at the image-maker.

It is a bit of a gamble – both on people not dropping out and on not giving unconsidered answers in order to speed the form filling. But Nestlé has created enough curiosity to draw people through the process.

First published on 05 February, 2004