Sanofi Aventis : Undermining first impressions

The idea persists that the web matters less or can be run to lower standards than other operations.

The Site

Sanofi Aventis is the new giant on the pharmaceuticals block, formed by the takeover of Franco-German Aventis by France’s Sanofi-Synthélabo. The new group logo and identity were launched officially today along with the group website.

Visitors to the site are greeted with a short animated roll out of the logo in a small secondary browser window. The home page of the French- and English-language versions of the site also has a link to “discover” the animation: this again plays in a secondary window but is slightly offset, so that the end-frame shows the company name as “sanofi avent”. There is no facility to alter the size or viewing frame of the secondary window.

While the site has a Group sites/Sites du groupe option on its main navigation bar many of the sites to which this leads do not have a reciprocal link to the main site. This is more true of the Sanofi Synthélabo sites than the Aventis ones. For example, Aventis in The Netherlands (like other European sites) has a navigation bar link; the Sanofi-Synthélabo Netherlands site does not.

The Takeaway

Sanofi Aventis has constructed a new group site that is impressively large and cleanly designed but undermines this impression with some sloppiness in basic execution and presentation.

The logo animation works well as a visualisation of joining and evolution, but if an offline representation of the new name had cut off the final two letters the person responsible would have become the first job loss of the new era. Somehow, the idea persists in many companies that the web matters less or can be run to lower standards than other operations. It can’t, and assuming otherwise can, as here, lead to embarrassment.

Similarly, the lack of cohesion in providing links from group sites to the new corporate site raises the question of how well co-ordinated the merger is, not only between different operating regions (the roll-out will almost certainly have been planned in stages), but also – a more damaging impression – between the two merged companies.

First published on 16 September, 2004