Dive Brief:

• Stoli Vodka has entirely redesigned its website to include a more dynamic homepage with refreshed content every 24 hours and novel navigation elements such as a cocktail shaker icon that opens to new sections, the company announced in a press release. 
• Content on the site is now aimed at "celebrating everyday moments" in sports, entertainment, food and beverage, pop culture and social media, and will feature themes like "Taco Tuesday" and "Throwback Thursday." Sections include “The Story” and "The History," which highlight the brand's recent creative work, LGBT community initiatives and product awards and ratings, along with 15 milestone moments in an image-driven timeline.
• "The new Stoli.com allows us to strike a balance between communicating the production differences and unrivaled heritage of our vodka with celebrating cocktails' place in everyday conversations," Alison Walsh, global director of PR and digital media, Stoli Group, said in a statement. "Our digital presence is a constant evolution. We're looking forward to providing different ways for our consumers to connect with our range of products and with each other."

Dive Insight:

Another unique element of the site is that the navigation categories are "cocktails" produced by the shaker icon, with each cocktail filtered by brand campaign hashtag or other general hashtags like #cocktailing, #brunch and #humblebrag. Stoli’s redesign is an interesting attempt to liven-up the branded website experience and break some of the conventions in what has grown to become a given digital marketing asset.

Brands showcasing more content, both original and shared, fits into a growing trend, but Stoli's commitment to refreshing its page every day is an unusually dedicated project. Not only does the page change daily, the content itself is focused on topics and news relevant to Stoli's target audience. That approach could potentially create more visits and also build a community of dedicated fans who turn to Stoli as a more comprehensive lifestyle publication as much as a brand page. 

More marketers are attempting to build out awareness and engagement for their brand, not just through ads, but in acting as these sort of content curators, especially on digital channels. Porsche, for example, recently launched a web TV content campaign to serve as a video supplement to its customer magazine Christophorus.

The press release didn’t address the new Stoli site's mobile readiness, but the redesign appears to take a mobile-first approach in the overall user experience, which is increasingly essential as consumers spend more time on their smartphones.