AKAMAI CASE STUDY

Dolce & Gabbana Reduces Page Load Times to Under 1.5 Seconds Globally, Improving the User Experience Both Online and on Mobile Devices while Protecting its Brand Image
The Dolce & Gabbana brand is famous for the highest quality and luxury clothing in the world and our customers expect the highest quality and luxury also when accessing our Web site. Thanks to Akamai, we are able to guarantee the best performance under any circumstances, and protect the online image of our brand. Essential. No other word better defines what Akamai means to Dolce & Gabbana.
Group Director, Digital Marketing & Communication division, Dolce & Gabbana

The Situation
Dolce & Gabbana is the worlds leading Italian brand in the fashion and luxury industry. Its international customers want to be kept updated on the groups offerings and are purchasing its products both in boutiques and online. As one of the first Italian fashion brands to offer rich multimedia content online, Dolce & Gabbana operates a Web site localized for site visitors. The site features live and on-demand streaming of catwalks that can be accessed via mobile devices, including videos and photos of fashion shows and collections, and sophisticated advertising images. Every month, several million visitors from around the world access the companys Web site.

COMPANY
Dolce & Gabbana srl Milan, Italy www.dolcegabbana.com

INDUSTRY
Commerce

SOLUTION
Akamai Dynamic Site Accelerator Akamai Media Delivery Akamai Content Targeting

The Challenge
As it analyzed site metrics, Dolce & Gabbana began noticing that visitors in the US, Japan, and China were abandoning the site at high rates. In fact, the site was so slow in loading pages that it was practically inaccessible for the visitors. Initially, Dolce & Gabbana thought the abandonment rate was attributable to inaccurate translations of the nine languages in which the companys Web site is served. Dolce & Gabbana decided to address the localization issue by having its site content translated by native speakers. However, this measure didnt fix the abandonment issue. We werent focused on the right issue and needed to pinpoint and resolve the correct reason of our site problems, explains the Group Director, Digital Marketing & Communication division, Dolce & Gabbana.

KEY IMPACTS
Improved site performance nearly 6X on average globally Offloaded over 87% of hits and traffic to the Akamai Intelligent Platform without special infrastructure provisioning Reduced site abandonment in key markets Upheld brand image online Delivered real time targeted content Gained a competitive advantage by streaming catwalks on the Web and to mobile devices

The Goal
Dolce & Gabbana needed to meet two key requirements to support its objectives:
Deliver a consistent online experience Dolce & Gabbana needed to improve site

performance for global visitors in order to uphold its brand, reduce site abandonment, avoid potential lost sales in the US and Asia, and deliver new online applications.
Grow site traffic without expanding infrastructure Dolce & Gabbana wanted

the freedom to drive site traffic without worrying about capacity issues.

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Dolce & Gabbana

AKAMAI CASE STUDY

Why Akamai
Selecting the Industry Leader Dolce & Gabbana considered expanding its data center footprint but quickly dismissed this option because it would be time-consuming and costly. Instead, it selected Akamai, recognized as a leader in its industry. Akamai analyzed the companys multiple site versions and found that the sites poor performance with an average display time of over 8.5 seconds was the main issue. Akamai recommended that Dolce & Gabbana implement the Akamai Dynamic Site Accelerator (DSA) solution, which accelerates delivery of rich, interactive content and applications. Better Site Performance Reduces Abandonment, Increases Conversions Once live on Akamai DSA, Dolce & Gabbanas site performance improved nearly 6 times globally on average. While page loads were five-and-a-half times faster in North America, and six times faster in Asia, they were seven times faster in Australia. In fact, average response time was reduced to less than one-and-a-half seconds. By decreasing the page load time, Dolce & Gabbana also lowered its problem of site abandonment by visitors, which in turn has helped Dolce & Gabbana to increase its e-commerce conversion rates. Dolce & Gabbana uses Akamai DSA to accelerate all versions of its site www.dolcegabbana.com, as well Swide (www.swide.com), its editorial digital hub available in English. Offloading the Data Center Akamai DSA has also reduced the load on Dolce & Gabbanas data center by offloading over 87% of the Websites hits and traffic to the Akamai edge servers. We can now confidently run marketing campaigns that drive high traffic to our sites without special provisioning in the data center, says the Group Director, Digital Marketing & Communication division, Dolce & Gabbana. Moreover, Dolce & Gabbana uses Akamai Content Targeting to customize content by accurately identifying the visiting users geographic location, connection speed, device type, and other attributes. As a result, Dolce & Gabbana can deliver targeted content in realtime at the network edge for each visitor. Protecting the Dolce & Gabbana Brand Online These improvements of Dolce & Gabbanas s internet performance reflect the characteristic of the Dolce & Gabbanas brand: highest quality and luxury experience, Internet as a competitive advantage Having solved the performance issue Dolce & Gabbana can now focus on using the great potential of the Internet to improve its success as a luxury fashion brand with a global presence. As a forward-thinking company Dolce & Gabbana decided to work closely with Akamai in establishing itself as the first company in Italy to stream its catwalks both on the Web and mobile devices. Now, using Akamais Media Delivery solution, each catwalk is available in live streaming and on-demand streaming with an unprecedented quality on every platform, including iPad, and iPhone, iTouch, and Android mobile devices. Akamais advanced technology has enabled us to gain a valuable competitive advantage, concludes the Group Director, Digital Marketing & Communication division, Dolce & Gabbana.

About Dolce & Gabbana

Founded in 1985, Dolce & Gabbana is one of the world leaders in the luxury industry. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the two founders, have always been the creative and stylistic source of Dolce & Gabbana and D&G, the two brands of the company, as well as the first directors of the companys growth strategies. The Group creates, produces and distributes high level clothes, leather goods, shoes and accessories. The production and the distribution of Dolce & Gabbana and D&G perfumes and glasses, and Dolce & Gabbana watches and jewelry is instead handled by partners. The Group globally counts 3828 employees and a directly operated distribution network made of 116 points of sales and 17 factory outlets (on January, 31st 2009).

The Akamai Difference

Akamai is the leading cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere. At the core of the Companys solutions is the Akamai Intelligent Platform providing extensive reach, coupled with unmatched reliability, security, visibility and expertise. Akamai removes the complexities of connecting the increasingly mobile world, supporting 24/7 consumer demand, and enabling enterprises to securely leverage the cloud. To learn more about how Akamai is accelerating the pace of innovation in a hyperconnected world, please visit www.akamai.com and follow @Akamai on Twitter.

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