Founded in 1922, Channell Commercial Corporation is a global designer and manufacturer of equipment supplied to telephone companies and cable television network operators. Major product lines include a complete line of thermoplastic and metal fabricated enclosures, advanced copper termination and connectorization products, fiber optic cable management systems and heat shrink products.
Channell's headquarters and U.S. manufacturing and distribution facilities are located in Temecula, California. International operations include facilities in Toronto (Canada), London (UK) and Sydney (Australia).
Channell wanted a new web site to better service existing customers and acquire new ones. In particular, Channell desired a more contemporary design, reflective of their overall marketing strategy. In addition, Channell wanted to create a comprehensive, online product catalog to replace an existing print catalog. Given the breadth and depth of Channell’s product lines, the easy maintenance of this online product catalog was a high priority for Channell.
1969 Communications, a web development company with client such as Isuzu Trucks and Aaron Brothers, chose Vertical Site as the content management solution for Channell’s new web site.
"We had successfully deployed Vertical Site for one of our other clients, North American Scientific. We felt that Vertical Site would be a good solution for Channell, due to its robust functionality and ease-of-use. It was important for us to enable Channell’s staff to maintain the site in-house with no programming knowledge", says Stacy Burgum, President, 1969 Communications.
In addition to Vertical Site’s content management capabilities, Channell took advantage of the poll, survey, discussion board, and newsletter tools to create a sense of community, collect market research, and foster two-way dialogue with their customers and prospects.
Installation and implementation of Vertical Site was done by 1969 Communications. 1969 Communications developed custom in-house tools to expedite working with style sheets. They also enhanced Vertical Site’s functionality by writing EJBs for site search and screen scraping.
"We are delighted to deliver yet another powerful content management solution. This is a good example of Vertical Site taking branding to another dimension, letting the marketing department easily work directly with the corporate Internet site. Which is one of Vertical Site's strenghts: letting each department, in a non-technical and intuitive manner directly handle their channel", Morten Eriksen, CEO, Enonic.