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BHP rebrands with first consumer campaign in 33 years

Australia’s largest resource company BHP Billiton has gone back to its roots, rebranding simply as BHP, along with a new “Think big” slogan.

New BHP logo

The change has been backed with the company’s first consumer marketing campaign in more than 30 years, masterminded by Ted Horton’s creative agency Big Red. Horton also voices the TV ad.

The campaign kicked of with full page ads in metro and national newspapers today, followed by prime time TV tonight, as well as online.

The work reminds the public of the company’s roots as Broken Hill Propriety, founded by seven miners, 130 years ago.

Copy from the new print ad

 

The new BHP print ad

Tony Cudmore, BHP’s group sustainability and public policy officer, told Mumbrella the first two TV ads in the campaign will make way for broad messaging, designed to be flexible and will also build foundations for BHP to have a broader discussion with Australians on a variety of issues, both political and cultural.

BHP has in recent years “not not invested significantly in its brand and in engaging and communicating effectively with its stakeholders, one could argue,” Cudemore said.

“Regardless of why it was the company really started looking at this closely and decided that it needed to do a much more effective job.

“We did a lot of research. We have done quantitative, we have done qualitative to really understand what out audiences expect of BHP, what concerns them, what role they think our company can and should play in society and in the economy.”

Cudmore said: “Audiences and stakeholders have lost touch with the contribution the company makes,” he said. “We are a very large employer, significant investor and very, very large taxpayer.”

BHP’s Big Australian campaign from the 1980s starring Bill Hunter and created by Andrew Wilson, co-founder of Wilson Everard, remains in the minds of consumers and BHP has sought to reignite the idea of the Big Australian.

Cudmore said: “”Think Big is not designed as a celebration of big, but is designed, we think, to create a compelling narrative for the company to talk about the issues that we think matter to Australians and to all of our stakeholders.”

Mumbrella understands that media in being planned on bought by Atomic 212.

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