The opinion making process shows the increasingly important role of non traditional media, typically, the role of the Internet. There is no reason to believe this trend might change: it is therefore desirable for business organizations to try to understand the reasons and implications of their communication strategies.

We carried out an in-depth analysis of online discussion monitoring on vitamins for Bayer Consumer Care: spontaneous discussions were segmented according to the subject dealt with and positive and negative elements of the image of multivitamin products emerging from the exchange of information between online users were defined in detail. On completion of this phase, our recommendation was to create an online information source focused on vitamins, building the website around the topics that emerged from the analysis.

Finally, the website went online. New contents, based on Insight from spontaneous online discussions, were published, a keyword advertising campaign was started and different banner campaigns were also created to increase knowledge of the website and the products.After two years of research and content development, in 2008 TuttoVitamine.it, which loosely translated means totally vitamins, has become the defacto consumer source of information on the vitamin industry.

The site was optimised for navigation by users and for indexation by search engines. We built a content management system that was updated three times per week based on continuous consumer monitoring of News Groups, Discussion Forums and Blogs in order to provide credible information to visitors based on their interests. To drive traffic to the site during its launch, we created specific online promotions by identifying the most visited websites, portals and search engines and linking to them to drive interested users to the website through focused web advertising campaigns.The promotion of the programme was executed exclusively online. The team worked diligently to create unique content for the site, publishing over 200 original articles during the first ten months. The campaign appeared on the most visited websites, portals and search engines in Italy. Five different campaigns involving eight groups of advertisements and more than 450 controlled keywords drove traffic to the site. All five campaigns were launched ater the site went online in May 2007. Since the website was launched, there have been six different campaigns, involving 61 announcements in 17 groups of advertisements.

From January 2008 to December 2008 TuttoVitamine.it received 732,877 unique visitors and 2,354,558 page views, greatly exceeding client expectations. Currently, over 350 original pieces of content (news, articles, dossiers, tests) focused on vitamins are published on Tuttovitamine.it. In 2008, on average, 40 percent of visitors viewed 10 pages per visit.