Advertising alone doesn't create a strong bond between product and customer. Yet that relationship is critical when it comes to gaining and keeping market share, particularly in a membership-driven business. The Buddy Program site functions like an online dating service, according to Daniel Singer, Web technology director at Rotterdam, Netherlands-based Unilever NV, which makes SlimFast's diet products. You enter some information about yourself . . .
Users can then search for a compatible buddy with whom they can correspond via private e-mail.
The buddy idea is a powerful concept, said Robert Drevs, an assistant professor of marketing at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Pairing up buddies amounts to managed instant messaging, he said. And along with bulletin boards, it lets people create a community of like-minded consumers. The reworked design also delivers Weight Watcher's new eTools. The site even features a panic button that members can turn to if they feel a chocolate craving coming on.