About the Company: Chill Out

Sissy Martin and Joe Cahill are the owners of Chill Out in Indianapolis, Indiana. Created in 1996, Chill Out was created to fulfill Sissy and Joe’s independent and entrepreneurial desires. They have amassed a collection of concession food carts and products including ice cream novelties, pretzels, and lemonade. They created a business that lives up to their high standards of ethics and integrity which translates to the events that they serve. While the duo has Chill Out planted in central Indiana, they have served events of all types and sizes, all over the country.

Sissy and Joe primarily ran Chill Out through phone, fax, and email. Customers gained access to all documents through direct contact with them. They spent endless amounts of time on the phone with potential and current clients, discussing product and event details and inventory. Clients often misplaced documents or were calling Sissy and Joe for last-minute driving directions. They were tired of scrambling to keep in contact with clients while their clients were looking for them to provide all the necessary documentation.

Sissy and Joe’s operational problems ran two-fold: Chill Out operated through direct client contact and therefore had low visibility online or in search engines. Their brand did not have a strong online identity. They needed a solution that would provide operational efficiency for their business while creating a brand that could be integrated across print and digital media. They wanted to integrate their print-based (or the offline) brand with which they built their business on with new digital media.

The Solution: An All-Encompassing Website

Sissy and Joe contacted Find8 for help. During the discovery process, we found that Chill Out lacked digital aspects of functionality. Many of Sissy and Joe’s last-minute paper problems could be solved by simply creating a website that worked for their clients. This website would gather all important documentation, instructions, and product information to provide a one-stop shop for clients. Along with building an operational website, we created a new brand identity that encapsulated the whimsical feeling of eating ice cream on a summer’s day. This feeling is an ideal that Sissy and Joe wanted to maintain in their brand.

First Solution: Make a Website that Works for Your Client

We essentially made Chill Out a full self-service website. The website currently features a members’ only portal for groups that are conducting a fundraising event. This feature allows group leaders to stay in contact with Sissy and Joe and a fundraising event group.

The site also features a volunteer section, complete with interactive maps and directions to event sites and downloadable forms.

Another beneficial addition to the website is the product catalog that showcases bestsellers, brands, flavors, and carton sizes. The product catalog helps keep Sissy and Joe off the phone for hours on end and lets the client check products at any time of the day.

Second Solution: Creating a Brand that Matches the Product (And Philosophy)

The second solution involved creating a brand identity. We refined Chill Out’s original logo and we chose a color palette from colors in the logo to make the website complementary. Using the color palette, we created a striped wallpaper borderline for the website.

The striped theme was carried over into the newsletter and email form through Constant Contact. The refreshed brand is filtered through not only the website, but through Chill Out’s print media. We created a brochure and business cards, utilizing the logo and striped wallpaper.

The striped wallpaper and the pastel color theme represent the whimsy of eating ice cream on a hot summer’s day. It reminds clients of the light-heartedness and play of those youthful days spent chasing the ice cream truck around the block. Sissy and Joe try to convey these feelings in their business and we found a way to reflect it in their brand.

The Results:

We built a website that works hard so Sissy and Joe can focus on providing the best service to their customers and on new leads. It benefits not only Sissy and Joe, but their clients as well. Clients can now find all the event and product information they need and organize their event through the website, demonstrating that websites don’t have to be just about finding information; they can increase your business’s operational efficiency.

With this project, Find8 also tackled a company that has its base in one location but serves a vast and wide area of the state. We customized their SEO on a regional level and Chill Out is already starting to get lead forms from the website.

Sissy and Joe came in with a few major issues which we solved with two solutions. We didn’t just make a pretty new website; we gave Sissy and Joe turnkey solutions to help their business run smoothly. Sissy and Joe are now freely interacting with and offering an optimized service to their clients.