• by Karl Greenberg , January 18, 2012

Water treatment company Culligan International, which is in its 75th year, is updating its 53-year-old "Hey, Culligan Man!" campaign, beginning with a version of culligan.com. The goal of the campaign, and the direction of the revamped site, is to extol the virtues of Culligan's local experts and installers as go-to people for configuring Culligan technology to local geology, water quality, supply, environmental issues and the like.

The company is also introducing new imagery around the "Culligan Man" himself, who is featured on the new site. The Chicago-based company has a network of over 800 dealers in 90 countries worldwide and says it has products in three million homes.

The new site has a "Solution Center" intended to solve queries related to factors such as touch, taste, smell, appearance or contaminant. The company says the new site addresses things like water-induced dermatologic problems, weird tastes, sulfuric odors, stains, and arsenic in water.

Ted Fay, Culligan International's director of eMarketing, tells Marketing Daily that the new site is a starting point on two levels. "We have re-architected and redesigned the site, and we are introducing the new Culligan Man imagery and refreshed positioning."

"The real trick is that most consumers are looking for a brand promise that isn't based on a national image, but on [Culligan's] value that the loyal dealer brings," says Fay. "So we are making that transition." He adds that the company did a series of studies recently to look at brand and positioning, and discovered that while many people recognize "Hey, Culligan Man" and exhibited a high degree of trust in the brand, their sentiments are tied to the local franchise and the level of service they offer.

He says the company is creating regionalized templates of the site for all dealers. "There will be over 600 local versions of the site, and then we will promote the Solution Center online resource, and add more of the educational pieces. We do a significant amount of web advertising, paid search and SEO, as well," says Fay.

There are four primary markets for Culligan, according to Fay: water softening, which was the original business that Culligan started; water filtration at the point of use, such as under-sink and drinking tap units; bottled water delivery; and commercial and industrial business.