Business Wire
July 30, 2001 12:15pm
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 30, 2001--
Honors Include International Astrid Awards, Communicator Awards,
Omni Intermedia Awards, Food Service Innovation Network,
International Web Page Awards & AIM Unica Personalization
Excellence Awards
AGENCY.COM, Ltd., (Nasdaq: ACOM), a leading e-business builder in
global markets, and Olive Garden, a division of Darden Restaurants,
Inc. (NYSE: DRI), announced today that the restaurant\'s site,
www.OliveGarden.com, has won numerous awards.
The two companies partnered last year to build the site, which
launched in November 2000.
The most prestigious award the site has won is the 2001 Astrid
Grand Award,
as well as the Gold Astrid Award in the Corporate Web
site Category. The Astrid Awards are an international competition
honoring outstanding achievement in design communications. The site
has also garnered the 2001 Best Restaurant Web site from the
Foodservice Innovation Network, which honors excellence in Internet
communications in the food service industry.
In addition, the site has been awarded Omni Intermedia\'s Fall 2000
Bronze Award. The Omni Awards were created to recognize the
accomplishments of outstanding media production in a variety of
fields. Other recognition for the site includes an Award of
Distinction from the Communicator Awards, a national awards
organization that recognizes outstanding work in the communications
field; a Certificate of Excellence from the International Web Page
Awards, a competition focused on providing recognition to
corporations, companies, and individuals who wish to spotlight their
creativity in interactive design; and recognition as a finalist for
the AIM/Unica Personalization Excellence Award, which honors a company
for excellence in the implementation of personalization services
through an ongoing relationship with their clients or customers.
We\'re extremely pleased that OliveGarden.com has been so well
received and so well decorated,
said Greg Watson, VP of Brand
Marketing, Olive Garden Restaurants. With AGENCY.COM\'s dedication and
expertise we feel we\'ve been very successful in taking the depth and
warmth of the Olive Garden experience online.
These awards are a great testament of the success of our work
with Olive Garden Restaurants,
said Lisa Hazen, Engagement Manager,
AGENCY.COM. It\'s been a very gratifying challenge to translate the
look and feel of Olive Garden Restaurants interactively and it\'s
wonderful to see our success so publicly rewarded.
Olive Garden sought to use the Internet to help achieve its
mission of being a family of local restaurants focused on delighting
every guest with a genuine Italian dining experience.
In doing so,
Olive Garden also hoped to create a flexible Internet presence with
dynamic fresh content that would result in frequent return visits.
Even site visitors are proclaiming the site a success, with
overwhelmingly positive responses to an online survey, by Greenfield
Online. It\'s easy and simple to navigate. The graphics are great and
the colors are easy on the eyes. The artistic work is evident and it\'s
informative,
wrote one visitor. Indicated another, I spent an hour
at your site. It is a very visually appealing site, very easy to look
at and follow,
and a third concluded his remarks with the ultimate
compliment: Overall, it made me hungry.
In working with Olive Garden to develop and implement this site,
AGENCY.COM greatly surpassed the success metrics established at the
outset of the project. An optimization effort resulted in a
significant increase in referrals from search engines based on phrases
and terms known to be commonly used by likely Olive Garden patrons,
nearly doubling site visits. And once at the home page, site visitors
that choose to enter their zip code are rewarded with a localized
version of the Web site, featuring restaurant information and menus
specific to their chosen restaurant. This contributed to site
stickiness,
resulting in an increase of more than 200% in page views
per visit.
AGENCY.COM has been working with Olive Garden Restaurants since
June 2000.
About Olive Garden
Olive Garden is the leading restaurant in the Italian dining
segment, with 469 restaurants, more than 56,000 employees and $1.6
billion in annual sales. Olive Garden is a division of Darden
Restaurants Inc., the world\'s largest casual dining company. For more
information, visit Olive Garden\'s new Web site at www.OliveGarden.com.
About AGENCY.COM
AGENCY.COM is a leading e-business builder in global markets. The
company provides strategy, branding and technology services that help
its clients build and grow their interactive business across multiple
digital channels -- the Web, wireless and interactive television.
Founded in January 1995, AGENCY.COM is headquartered in New York and
has offices in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Copenhagen,
Dallas, London, Paris, Portland (OR), San Francisco, Woodbridge (NJ)
and affiliate offices in Australia, Korea and Singapore. AGENCY.COM
serves a broad and diversified global client base in a variety of
industries, including 3M, British Airways, Colgate-Palmolive, Compaq,
Heineken and Reuters. For investor information, please visit
http://www.agency.com/investors or call AGENCY.COM\'s Investor
Relations line at 212.358.2702. To receive press releases going
forward, please send contact information to investors@agency.com or
call toll free 877.721.3006 for a fax copy.
Matters discussed in this release may include forward-looking
statements that involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results
may be materially different. Factors that could cause actual events or
results to differ from anticipated events or results include risk
factors and other items that are contained in AGENCY.COM\'s reports and
documents filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange
Commission.
--30--ah/ny*
CONTACT: AGENCY.COM
Press:
Melissa Holden, 212/651-3962
mholden@agency.com
or
Investors:
Brian Stanton, 212/651-3722
bstanton@agency.com
or
Badger, Kry and Partners
Mary Skinner, 212/533-3222 ext 106
mskinner@badgerworldwide.com
or
Darden Restaurants
Olive Garden Restaurants
Steve Coe, 407/245-4923