Planet Propaganda: Enhances Bretford Website for Intuitive, Easier Product Experience

(Madison, Wis.) – Three years after designing and developing Bretford furniture’s website, Planet Propaganda suggested enhancements to better reflect the company’s evolving brand, product lines, and market penetration. The end result: a website design that reflects Bretford’s brand image today and gives all types of customers faster, easier access to its business, library, and educational furniture products. Planet also created a client-side administrative content management system to arm Bretford with more control over its on-line product merchandising opportunities, saving as much as $36,000/year in site maintenance costs.

“We took it upon ourselves to make a good site even smarter and easier to use. We made dramatic improvements to Bretford.com’s design and better organized its products so users can get to the right product fast,” says Suz Harms, brand manager at Planet Propaganda.

“We are always pushing to create better, smarter ways for our clients to communicate, regardless of medium,” Harms emphasizes. “When we designed Bretford’s site in 2002-03, it reflected the brand identity at the time. As we prescribe for every site we develop – updating, refreshing and sometimes, overhauling – is essential. Just as we modified Bretford’s collateral and ad direction, so too must the website design and user experience be aligned.”

Chris Petrick, Bretford’s director of marketing, notes these web visitors include such diverse audiences as architects, designers, dealers, tech buyers, facilities managers and others. “Planet bolstered the navigation and reconstructed the information architecture to accommodate searches by category, market type, environment, brand name or keyword. As a result, our users can find the products they need quickly,” says Petrick.

The updated site also showcases all of Bretford’s business product lines available exclusively through Herman Miller dealers. Helping support the companies’ recent marketing alliance, the website’s enhancements also provide an always-available resource to assist Herman Miller dealer representatives, and Bretford’s own customer service and sales teams, as they familiarize themselves with the products. Petrick notes, “The on-demand nature of the site helps both of our companies save on training time and expenses.”

Planet’s content management system is saving Bretford up to $3,000/month in maintenance costs. “Most of these fees were associated with ongoing, online product merchandising and promotions that change throughout the year,” Harms explains.

Petrick adds, “Planet re-designed the functionality to give our marketing team the ability to push any of our products to the ‘front window’ at any time. We have complete control over what product lines we promote, how heavily, and for how long. And we can change it daily, need be.”

“We put the power in the hands of our clients.” Harms continues, “We created an intuitive, seamless content management tool with a comfortable interface that lets a logged-in Bretford administrator made updates while preserving the intended look and feel. It’s a must-have for any company that requires ongoing data updates and timely information. The medium cannot stagnate, especially as the brand and its positioning continue to evolve.”

For nearly 60 years, Bretford, a family-run Chicago business and education furniture manufacturer, believes that good design is design that works. The result – a unique range of innovative products for business, education, library, and technology environments that enhance how people work and learn. Bretford business products are available exclusively through Herman Miller. For more about Bretford, please visit http://www.bretford.com.

Planet Propaganda is a design, advertising and interactive company committed to shaping passion-based brands. Founded in 1989 in Madison, Wis., Planet’s national clients include Gary Fisher mountain bikes, Bretford, PunchStock royalty-free images, and Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches. For more information, please visit http://www.planetpropaganda.com.