Promoting dairy products through the web: The case of Pecorino Siciliano PDO during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study analyses the digital marketing tools that companies producing Pecorino Siciliano with a protected designation of origin (PDO) are implementing on the web through their corporate website and their brand page on Facebook. It aims to verify whether companies are adapting (or not) to new trends in web marketing and e-commerce. The quality of corporate websites was assessed during the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of usability and amount of activity on Facebook brand pages by Pecorino Siciliano PDO-producing companies. Analysed data show that the companies producing Pecorino Siciliano PDO fell short in developing their web-marketing tools, demonstrating their poor adaptation to the new digitalisation trends driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.