Situation

Logitech sought a milestone publicity event that would help establish it in the U.S. as the leading provider of a broad variety of computer interface devices. In response, we suggested that we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the invention of the computer mouse.
As the anniversary approached, our goal was to leverage this milestone for corporate and brand visibility that positioned Logitech as a leader across many interface technologies.

Objectives

• Turn a "mouse" milestone into an "interface leader" event
  
• Increase Logitech corporate stature along with creating higher brand visibility
  
• Build pride among Logitech employees worldwide
  

Special Connections

• Doug Engelbart, inventor of the mouse, the graphic user interface (GUI) and other computer related "firsts" has close ties with Logitech, and his Bootstrap Institute operates out of Logitech’s U. S. headquarters office. We helped Logitech join with the Institute for the Future and Stanford University to create an event that celebrated how far computer technology had come in thirty years.
  
• Paul Saffo and others turned our mouse milestone into a full day symposium and salute to Doug Engelbart on the Stanford campus called "The Unfinished Revolution", with a "Who’s Who" of technology luminaries on hand to present or participate.
  
• We positioned Logitech CEO Guerrino DeLuca alongside Engelbart as leader of the "interface" revolution spawned by the computer mouse. An AP photo showing Englebart with the original mouse seated with DeLuca and a range of modern devices became the visual "icon" of the milestone.
  
• We arranged a same-week East Coast media tour for DeLuca to meet with business and technology media who had not been able to attend the West Coast event.
  
• We created a next-day Logitech website feature that brought the event to worldwide employees and shared ongoing waves of media placements as they occurred.

Results

• More than a thousand people overflowed the auditorium, including tech luminaries like Marc Andreessen, Jaron Lanier, Stewart Brand and Alan Kay.
  
• Logitech benefited from hundreds of millions of impressions from 300+ national media placements, including Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN and PBS
  
• DeLuca: "you have greatly raised our visibility"
  
• Engelbart: "you have made this one of the most important days of my life"