Chicago Importing Company offers highly sought-after Scandinavian and western European chocolates, candies, cookies, cheeses, beverages, seafood, specialty foods and more. The company came to us to launch a consumer-facing website for its top-selling in-house label, Lars Own, and its sibling brands.
To spur sales of Lars Own products and those of its related brands without selling directly through their website.
Craft a sophisticated-looking digital experience that showcases the brands’ product selections and unique heritages, incorporating a map-based tool to show customers the nearest location for the item they are seeking.
An informative, engaging website offering intuitive navigation among products and which directs customers to the retail locations where the items can be purchased.
Lars Own already had an established visual identity through its product packaging, so we wanted to capitalize on its familiarity with current customers as well as attract new ones. Key brand assets such as the primary navy color and the Stockholm skyline graphic made their way into the website design, and there were text-styling considerations echoed as well.
We expanded the color palette with a brighter blue and some additional neutral tones for variety. The display typeface was chosen due to its resemblance to the font used on Lars Own product labels, conveying a similar tone while optimizing on-screen readability. The simple-yet-refined icon style was inspired by the understated aesthetic popular in many Nordic cultures.
When approaching the site design, we heavily utilized white backgrounds in keeping with a clean, open aesthetic that matches the imagery on the brand’s product packaging. We also kept the navigation as simple as possible, with numerous intuitively-placed links to the Where To Buy page in order to drive consumers to Lars Own’s retail partners.
As Lars Own’s products are the focal point of the web experience, we took great care to present them in an engaging, easy-to-digest format with multiple filtering options for quick access to what the user is seeking. We also integrated products into multiple content areas on the site, including recipes and the brand pages, to provide numerous points of entry and illustrate the items’ many potential uses.
The Where To Buy functionality was key to our goal of driving product sales, so it was integrated into nearly every aspect of the new website. Rather than presenting users with a static list of stores where Lars Own products are sold, we created a rich experience where availability is displayed based on the specific product the user is interested in. Proximity of the products is particularly important when considering that many of them are perishable.
The unique origins and heritage of the brands featured on the Lars Own website are part of what makes their products so in demand. We explore these details on the Brand Pages, emphasizing important facts with iconography and delving into cultural and national sources, as well as displaying the complete product selection and associated recipes for the label.
It’s no secret that foodies love Lars Own’s products, and presenting a robust reviews section helps add credibility to the informational content on the site. The reviews, which are featured both on products and recipes, have convenient sorting and filtering options and support multimedia content, in addition to the ability to ask questions of the Lars Own team.
The recipes are not only helpful in demonstrating the usefulness of the products, they help establish the site as a useful source for culinary information. Items available from Lars Own or its related brands will display as active links in the “ingredients” list, leading to the product detail pages for those items. In addition, the “Featured in this recipe” section offers links to the Where To Buy page with those products already selected, presenting an easy path for purchase.
With the new web experience, gourmet foodies have a destination for learning about Chicago Importing Company’s appetizing in-house specialties, as well as as handy information on how to incorporate them into their favorite cuisine and where to purchase the items. We would declare the project a sweet success even if it didn’t feature our favorite ginger snap cookies.
