Site: www.canon.com.sg
"Technology that makes you smile", promises the shiny Ralph Fiennes
lookalike on Canon Singapore's home page. Unfortunately, my smile didn't
last long as the scrolling Java text crashed my iMac. What's more, the
rollovers for the links didn't work at all, making the site basically
unusable for Mac fans. Now Java on the Macintosh is notoriously buggy,
and Mac users are a pretty small minority, but it amazes me that
big-brand companies still launch websites without having thoroughly
tested across multiple platforms. "Check out which Canon is
mac-compatible (sic)", crows the front page. I laughed, grimly. Switch
to Windows, and the site actually works pretty well. There is a good
range of product content and a well-stocked press section. Canon has
clearly tried to humanise its brand: refresh the home page and you
randomly rotate between Ralph Fiennes, cherubic child and long-haired
student type.
Everywhere, you are reminded of Canon's leadership and history. The copy
waxes hyperbolic. Printers become "powerful elements of nature in its
making". Prose canonises the company to mythological Japanese goddess
status.
Overall, this is clearly a local-market site, done on a budget.
Functional, yes. Brand-positive, hmm ... not really. And if you're a Mac
user, forget it.
