Why is the Berkshire Hathaway website so bad?

I first encountered the Berkshire Hathaway website back in 2004 when I got my first job out of college – it happened to be with a company owned by Berkshire Hathaway. I was blown away to see how elementary the site was with default font on a plain white background and zero images. Now, in 2011, I see they still have the same website. So the question is, why does the company owned by one of the richest men in the world have the lamest website in the world? I wish I knew the answer. Maybe Mr. Buffett is onto something! Certainly the professionalism of his website has nothing to do with the success of his company. And vice versa, there are certainly fantastic websites out there with very unsuccessful companies behind them. This is part of the beauty (and deception) of the web. One-person companies can appear to be huge corporations online, and in the case of Berkshire Hathaway, huge successful companies can appear to have outsourced their web needs to a kindergarten class. Definitely a “don’t judge a book by its cover” type of lesson to be learned from these types of websites.

But wouldn’t it just make more sense for Berkshire Hathaway to have a professional website? For the sake of my sanity as a web designer? Clearly Mr. Buffett is not a huge fan of the web world, and I remember my boss telling me that they had just started having email addresses in 2002… but I would think his good friend, Mr. Gates, could talk some sense into him and get an online presence that would better represent his stellar organization. It doesn’t need to be fancy or flashy… can still be simple without looking lame!  I would sure love to give it a shot! Give me a call anytime, Mr. Buffett: 402-610-1222.

Curious Chipotle Bag

Chipotle Bag

When picking up the requested Burrito Bowl for my husband last night, I was shocked to find a familiar excerpt printed on the Chipotle bag. (Click image for larger view).

The wording won’t make any sense to most of the world, but for someone in the marketing industry, I use this phrase almost daily! The ‘Lorem ipsum…” phrase (otherwise knows as Greek text) is commonly used as placeholder text on marketing materials in the design process. The idea being, if the designer doesn’t have approved content for the piece yet (brochure, website…), to use this Greek text as filler content. That way, the client doesn’t focus on the made-up/unapproved content (as they inevitably do) instead of the design that they are supposed to provide feedback for. This method is very standard within the design industry.

So knowing this information, it begs the question – did Chipotle send an unfinished bag to print?! Either they forgot to change out the filler text on the one side of the bag, or they certainly have an interesting new marketing strategy!