Logitech makes very good PC peripherals that look snazzy and
work well. At Logitech.com's press room, however, the company
applies only half that formula. It offers a pleasant, inviting face
that isn't quite as courteous as it seems.
As a consumer technology vendor, the corporate site has to serve
many masters: peripheral shoppers, owners seeking support and
updates, investors, and the press. Unfortunately, Logitech tried to
address these very different constituencies with the same Web
interface and sleek production values that are made to impress
consumers but only get in the way of researchers looking for info
and contacts.
Which is not to say that the Logitech.com press room is
unusable. In fact, it is exceptionally well-targeted to hardware
reviewers. From its bottomless pit of media assets to a trove of
white papers and conscientious press contact list, the site
exemplifies product-focused press support. In most cases, the site
gives reviewers precisely what they need to get their work
done.
Logitech Press Relations Staff: Mike Liwanag, media relations
coordinator, 510/713-4096; Brian Ritchie, senior public relations
specialist, 510/713-4231;
Betty Skov, director of worldwide public relations,
510/713-4463
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Comments
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| Link from Homepage | C | A drop down "About Us" menu offers a direct link to a formal Press Room, and the good news is that this area is designed specifically around press needs. Press releases, media assets, backgrounders and contacts are in one spot. The bad news is that the most important assets here, PR contacts especially, are behind a registration wall. Worse, we needed to wait more than a half hour to receive clearance after registering and were assigned a cryptic password that we couldn't change to something more memorable. |
| Press Release Archive | B | Logitech archives releases back through 1999, which is good, but it fails to parse them into basic categories such as product-related and corporate, which is bad. Likewise, it uses only the one-line headline of the release to index the archive, which means that journos have to click into a lot of cryptic and ambiguous headlines to find the release they really want. The archive also needs a "print this" function, which is fundamental to Web research. |
| Contact Information | A | Going beyond a generic "PR@" or single initial contact, Logitech gives journalists an entire page in which the PR staff is broken down by product specialties and international offices, along with phone and email info. International contacts are included as well. Giving reporters the most direct access to the PR rep responsible for their area of interest is a sure way to communicate to the press that you are here to help them write their stories faster. |
| Archive of News Coverage |
F | Nada. Aside from industry awards (which are outdated), there is little acknowledgement here that the press even covers the company's product or business status. And this is odd, because generally Logitech products have a good reputation in the consumer tech space, and they enjoy strong reviews. The absence of archived press coverage here suggests either an unnecessary defensiveness or simple laziness. Overall, it ignores one of the core principles of a press area - make it easy for media to write their stories. |
| Ease of Navigation | B | Logitech's site trades lush design for speed. Too many functions and assets require drilling down several (albeit pretty) pages, and the general sluggishness of the site makes this tedious. That said, it thoughtfully provides a host of navigational options: cross links to critical material in the left nav bar as well as a top line nav tree that lets you back out to previous levels after you've drilled down. The best tool is the Favorites function. Once press members log in, they can assign specific pages they have visited to a Favorites menu that follows them in the left nav bar. This was an undelivered promise, because the system often lost our bookmarks between sessions. |
| Financial Information | A | While the financials on the company are not in the press room, they constitute one of the strongest parts of the Logitech site. Not only are all SEC filings here, but so is an archive of annual reports and a lengthy list of financial analysts and even their email addresses. In short, this area should have been used as a model for constructing the press room, because it is designed around what information its target audience needs and how it needs to use it. |
| Graphics and Media Assets |
A+ | This is the strongest aspect of the Logitech press area and a real model for other consumer product sites. Logitech makes the arguable assumption that the press comes here mainly to support product reviews, and so it has an unrivaled database of product shots, logos, and white papers explaining entire product categories. Better still, it treats these assets as a kind of e-commerce, so the press can use a search box to find the right products, add them to a shopping cart, designate the image resolution they need, and either download them in a compressed format or email them as an attachment. |
| News by Email | F | There is no specific function for press to sign up for email notification, and it was unclear whether Logitech automatically adds one to its email list when a media member registers. Regardless, Logitech should let the press choose to receive press releases in a given product area or for the company's financials. Letting reporters self-filter these functions is another way for a company to communicate to the press that it is here to help. |
| Overall | B- | Logitech is a good example of how design overkill and superficial media-friendliness often try to replace genuine utility in a press area. At first blush, the Logitech press area looks like a well-designed trove of goodies the media can use, and when it comes to supporting product reviews with media assets, the site delivers on this promise. Too many consumer product sites forget to include graphic assets and supporting documents that explain product categories, and in these areas Logitech is a model. Beyond that, however, Logitech seems to misunderstand how journalists use the Web to research a company. Easy (no registration) quick access to printable press releases, search engines focused on press releases, archived press coverage, and direct links to a company's financials are all core necessities. Logitech gets it about half right. |