Canon fires up its marketing with Namma Bengaluru Project

Canon India Pvt. Ltd, India’s No 1. Complete Digital Imaging Company has beefed up its marketing in Bangalore with the launch of its new project, Namma Bengaluru. Under this project Canon will be investing through advertising, promotions, below the line activities and working towards more engagement with partners with the aim to increase Canon’s presence and mind share in the city. The campaign will focus on Canon’s Consumer Systems Products’ division that deals with Canon’s IT peripheral products range.

This project was kicked off on Thursday, March 6, and will be sustained through various ATL and BTL activities throughout the year. The company expects to double its market share of All-in-Ones from 9% to 20% within six months under this project.

The ‘Namma Bengaluru’ campaign is the third in a series of such campaigns that Canon is launching in India. The earlier two campaigns ‘Aamchi Mumbai’ and ‘Hamaari Delhi’ focused on Mumbai and Delhi markets respectively and were highly successful in increasing penetration of CSP products in these markets as well as in strengthening Canon’s presence in the digital imaging market segment.

Bangalore, with an estimated population of nearly 6.5 million and its pre-eminent position as the leading contributor to India’s IT industry was a natural choice for introducing a customized region-specific campaign for Canon’s consumer systems products that includes inkjet printers, laser printers, inkjet All-in-ones, scanners and projectors. The significance and relevance of the campaign is enhanced due to the added facts like Bangalore has recorded the highest penetration of IT products and printers in the country.

Mr. Kensaku Konishi, President & CEO, Canon India said, “Bangalore is a very important market for Canon in southern India. For Canon’s Consumer Systems Products’ division it is strategically crucial as Bangalore is known as the IT capital of India and has the highest PC penetration in the country. We see an opportunity of growth in this market relying on our strong product portfolio that is built on state-of-the-art technology and uncompromising performance and gels perfectly with the city’s ethos. Our enhanced product portfolio across categories, innovative marketing coupled with faster response to the market will be our key strategies towards high growth in 2008 and the ‘Namma Bengaluru’ campaign is an important step in this direction.”

Commenting on the launch of the Bangalore project Mr. Alok Bharadwaj, Senior Vice President, Canon India said, “Consumer System Products division has registered a 38% growth in 2007 which is higher than the industry growth. We want to sustain this high growth for this division. We are looking at making Canon as the second most preferred choice of brand in all major cities. With higher incidence of home printing, ‘Namma Bengaluru’ project is best customised project for city of Bangalore. The focus will be to position our category as ‘must have’ It device in homes.” He further added “ In the initial phase of the project we have planned a Rs. 2 crore investment in this project and depending on the need we will look at increasing the same.”

The program has been poised on six key pillars of Canon in Bengaluru:
1.Repositioning the product as a versatile ‘must have’ for home through Increased consistent brand visibility through various advertising and marketing initiatives.

2.Increasing Canon Premium Partner engagement

3.Thurst on corporate business

4.Engagement with Canon Empowered partners

5.Improved and increased level of Service support

6.Customer engagement through experiential marketing

For the first pillar of this project targeted at the Canon Primary Partners. Canon will look at capturing more of the photo printing market and increase penetration in the laser printing space. The company will also provide more schemes and training programs for these partners. The second pillar is the corporate business of Canon. The company is looking at increasing and streamlining communication for the corporate partners and also appointing an exclusive CIPL manager. This segment will contribute 15% to the total revenue by end of the year. The third pillar is an increased impetus on the Canon Empowered Partners by introducing special loyalty and incentive programs and unleashing a series of road shows, retail branding, enhanced demo support and initiating merchandising deployment. The fourth pillar is the Service provided to the consumers for which Canon will create free service camps and look at increasing customer delight by making DOA within 24 hours, the company will also include multiple Canon Care Centres in Bengaluru and target at increasing both customer and channel delight. The fifth pillar is direct Customer Engagements to ensure hands on experience for the consumer. To enable this Canon will conduct road shows at malls and housing complexes and conduct demos where they will demonstrate the print at home concept and introduce buy back campaigns. The last pillar of this program is increasing brand visibility by focusing on retail branding to create top of mind recall. This pillar will also experience the mystery shopper programs to increase and enhance visibility.

New launch: The All-in one Solution You Can afford to bring home is called Canon’s New Wonder Box, the PIXMA MP 145 All in one, Resolution 48000 dpi (Max), Document printing speed 20ppm mono & 15ppm colour, comes with Canon’s Unique FINE print head and has an Ink-droplet size 2pl (mm), Features a 600 dpi flatbed scanner, The PIXMA MP 145 All-in one is priced at Rs.3995/-.and is setting up an exclusive showroom in Bangalore Brigade road with area spread over 3000 sqft. enables you to bring out your own personalized Calendars, create a photo album also Print an Image on Your ‘T’ shirts with 100% photo quality print and many more features which is specially made for Bangalore crowd which will also have online service. Cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar is their Brand ambassador.