It’s A Wonderful Logitech – Bronze

It’s a nightmare for any tech company: A blogger gets his or her hands on what’s meant to be a blockbuster product prior to the product’s official release. Logitech and agency Alcone, however, turned that nightmare scenario into a dream promotion.

Best known for manufacturing PC peripherals, for the 2012 holiday season Logitech wanted to make sure consumers knew it also produced a number of gift-friendly accessories, ranging from headsets to game controllers. It also hoped to encourage consumers to buy these items through its website, rather than from traditional and online retailers.

To do this, it created a video campaign around Seth Coolio, a fictional tech blogger who, desperate to increase readership, infiltrated Logitech headquarters. Posing as its new chief holiday officer, hidden camera in hand, the faux blogger spoke with Logitech employees, who enthused about their products. The subsequent videos, complete with tongue-in-cheek rhyming narration (“Witness the tale of tech blogger Seth Coolio/whose readership was down to a guy named Julio”), were released throughout December on Logitech’s website and blog, Facebook, and YouTube.

Logitech also introduced Seth as the company’s chief holiday officer on its blog and Facebook page, where he posted his favorite gift picks. On Logitech.com, employees shared their top gift selections as well, helping to further humanize the brand.

Despite absolutely no advertising or paid media support, the videos captured more than 24,000 views, generating more than 51,000 visits to the Logitech holiday landing page and nearly 26,000 visits to the Logitech product feature page. The campaign also led to 539 orders and $87,000 in sales directly from Logitech’s website, 2.6 times more than its previous holiday promotion, for Father’s Day, had generated. There’s no word, however, on whether Seth Coolio did manage to drive more readers to his blog.