Rebuilding Weber’s website and apps around the joy of grilling

In 2015 Weber wanted to stop selling grills and start celebrating grilling. That meant becoming a lifestyle brand instead of a product maker. To get there, Weber needed a new global online shop and a set of mobile apps that worked together.

To sell an experience instead of a product, Weber’s own channels had to change. We mapped one route for customers, from first inspiration to purchase and after. Instead of short-lived microsites and campaign pages, weber.com became the permanent home for recipes, stories and the shop. Every channel was set up to build a long-term relationship with the customer, not a single sale.

The first version of the new weber.com went live in eight months. It ran on one global codebase, connected to Weber’s core data systems. Local markets kept control of their own pages, and we sorted the catalogue into tiers so the effort went where it mattered. The hero products got real-time 3D demos and first-person videos. Over 70% of traffic was organic, the average visit lasted more than two and a half minutes, and sales of the hero product line rose 400%, all of it traceable to the site.

People grill in the backyard, so Weber had to be there too. A big part of my role was deciding which apps Weber should have: one app for everything, or separate apps for separate jobs. We kept separate apps and connected them with one global login, so Weber could learn from how people used them and personalise content across all of them.

The app for the iGrill thermometer had a one-star rating. We fixed its connection problems and redesigned the interface, and the rating went up to four stars. It also gave Weber a community of very engaged fans.