
How not to design a landing page: Tazo Tea - mjfern
http://www.tazo.com/
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fleitz
It ok for Tazo to have a crappy landing page because they have excellent
placement at point of purchase (aka. physical landing page). They have
placement and packaging that converts, and built in defaults that result in
sales. (eg. if you order tea you're ordering Tazo at a large number of coffee
shops)

They also have excellent testimonials by having a large chain such as
Starbucks serve their teas. Tea is generally an instant gratification
purchase, and not something you'd wait 2 days to arrive over the internet.
(Yes, perhaps there is an opportunity for a Zappos of tea, but internet
retailing is not a core competency of Tazo)

If you're ordering tea from the internet, it's probably specialty and not
something you can pick up from one of the hundreds of coffee shops you can
find within a few miles of where ever you live. Hence if you are 'really
really obscure hipster tea' then you need a good landing page, Tazo does not.

In the world of people who buy tea Tazo has the #1 ranking in terms of 'google
for tea' (aka. starbucks). Designing a proper landing page and website will
add almost nothing to their bottom line where as changing their packaging
would have a much bigger impact, or sweetening the deal for distributors so
the local mom and pop coffee shop is more likely to carry Tazo. People often
forget that 98% of purchases are made offline. No one is going to order Tazo
tea from the internet, nor will they decide to order Tazo tea the next time
they are at the coffee shop because of a landing page. Therefore from the
perspective of their bottom line their landing page is as good as it needs to
be.

Also it appears that their 'landing page' is:
<http://www.facebook.com/tazo?v=info> and not tazo.com

~~~
angrycoder
You are out of your mind. Their site flat out does not work with the default
behavior of most modern browsers.

In chrome, you get nothing but a tiny bit of text with no option to continue
to the main site.

In firefox and IE, you get a browser notification that the site is trying to
open up a popup window.

~~~
thirdstation
"You are out of your mind. Their site flat out does not work with the default
behavior of most modern browsers"

I think you are missing the fleitz's point. From his post:

"It ok for Tazo to have a crappy landing page"

They are omnipresent in meatspace. I'd say they overspent on the website. They
could have gone with a one-pager that said something like "We're Tazo Tea. You
can find us everywhere. Go buy some."

He wasn't saying that is OK their site is non-functioning but that they really
don't even need a website.

~~~
angrycoder
That is an entirely different discussion.

Public: Your website doesn't work

Tazo: We are so awesome! Want to ride on my giraffe? It's made out of MONEY!

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dholowiski
All I get on my iPhone is a nice prompt to install flash, and no link to a
non-flash version so I can't even comment on the horrible-ness of the landing
page.

~~~
Semiapies
Ain't much better on the desktop - there's a broken javascript link to the
front page. I had to look at it and type in the actual URL:
<http://www.tazo.com/tazo.asp?init=>

ETA: Mind, this looks like a neglected old-school ASP site that hasn't been
touched in years.

~~~
elbrodeur
You probably have chrome -- or some other popup blocker. I had to allow popups
for Tazo.com for it to work.

~~~
Semiapies
Quite right.

Mind, a site in a popup is a batshit insane/silly concept.

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dagw
Given that their noflash page tell you to go download flash version 7 and the
source code of tazo.com says © 1999-2004 I think we can safely assume that no
one at Tazo has seriously looked over their website for many years, and it
obviously plays zero role in their sales and marketing strategy. By the looks
of things they're focusing on their facebook page rather than their website as
their main online presence.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>" _It obviously plays zero role in their sales and marketing strategy. By the
looks of things they're focusing on their facebook page rather than their
website as their main online presence._ "

Does any of their packaging include the website address. Does Facebook link to
the website? If either of these is true then they are using it as part of
their marketing strategy. I don't expect much from a tea company, just an
image with their product range and possibly a list of suppliers along with the
usual boiler-plate and statutory obligations.

Are they a public company, trying to win investment?

I didn't notice their landing page linking to a Facebook page which at least
says that they didn't tell the person in charge of the website that Facebook
is their main online contact point.

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smanek
I know people who would think that is good ... (Based on the fact that they
think flash pages with intro animations are good, because they 'clearly take
more work, and are so much more unique.').

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younata
They, clearly, do not have any type of smartphone.

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flip
It just says my patience will be rewarded with tea... I'm on an iPhone. I'm
going to have to be patient for a very long time to get this tea. And I'm
thirsty now.

Is this how marketing is supposed to work?

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Vivtek
Yes, because you're sitting at Starbucks. If you go get tea, you'll be buying
Tazo. Mission accomplished!

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blacksmith_tb
As an amusing bit of background, the Tazo site was designed by Sandstrom, who
have done some other doozies in their time:
<http://www.sandstrompartners.com/work/tazo> It's even more poignant that Tazo
hasn't changed much at all in the last four years...

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jrockway
Yeah, this website is bad. But I agree with the comments that say it doesn't
matter, because it doesn't. You are not Tazo's customer; Starbucks and other
coffee shops are. Presumably nobody googles for tea and finds Tazo, instead
they see it at other coffee shops, see it at trade shows, etc.

It Just Doesn't Matter. (Why have a website at all? No idea. They wanted one,
did a bad job, didn't see it affect their sales, and just left it. Or
something.)

~~~
Bud
Bzzt. I am Tazo's customer. I buy their products. If they had a great website,
such that I could learn more about their products which I haven't tried yet, I
might just buy more of their products.

~~~
philwelch
_Bzzt._

Stop doing that. It's obnoxious and makes you come across as a smug asshole.
HN guidelines say, "Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to
face conversation."

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bobds
It's pretty impossible to use this on Firefox with NoScript.

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Raphael
The stupidity. Just use the popup as the home page!
<http://www.tazo.com/tazo.asp>

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riffic
This company apparently doesn't want me to see their site. too bad.

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cubicle67
how it should be done <http://www.fivesenses.com.au>

same market, but different approach

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ryanjmo
Maybe they just really want people to have pop-ups allowed on their site and
have AB tested the landing page to this...

Maybe not...

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Veera
The message in that page reads: "this site appears in a popup. So, if you have
a popup blocker, please turn it off while you visit".

Now, how am I supposed to know this information, if my pop-up blocker has
already blocked this page? :P

This reminds me an old joke where one person writes a letter to his friend
saying "Please write me back if you are not getting this letter". :)

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earino
That flat out fails on my iPad. Just a blank screen.

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chrismealy
I'm still waiting for Starbucks to answer my question: are the tazo berries
fresh-picked?

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binspace
Clicking on the "Click here" doesn't even work for me. I'm running ubuntu.

~~~
preek
Does not work on OS X 10.6/Chrome, too.

