Canon Business Services appoints new marketing team
Canon Business Services has appointed a new marketing leadership team and launching a new brand concept that seeks to challenge the conventions of B2B marketing.
The announcement:
Canon Business Services has shaken up its approach to marketing, appointing a new marketing leadership team and launching a new brand concept that seeks to challenge the conventions of B2B marketing.
Canon is one of the world’s best known imaging brands – but behind the company’s success, hides its biggest problem. People already think they know what Canon does and the services it provides. So, when Canon Business Services expanded its capabilities with the acquisitions of business processing company Converga and IT services provider Harbour IT, the business faced a big challenge in how to reposition its brand as being much more than just an imaging company.
General Manager Marketing, Simon Russell, was bought over from the company’s consumer imaging business to lead the way. Canon Business Services has now appointed an entirely new Marketing Leadership Team, all with consumer backgrounds, and today officially launched its new brand concept – no one does it like you.
Simon Russell, General Manager, Canon Business Services, said his team was tasked with taking a fresh look at how the business approached marketing and to help Canon better connect with its business customers.
“People love Canon – our brand has great emotional power and engagement. But our approach to business has been focused on products, on being corporate and being rational. There was little consistency and our brand was failing to connect with people in the same way that we connect with our consumer audiences. We needed to change our approach and find a way to harness the emotion that’s at the heart of Canon’s brand.”
The new Marketing Leadership Team was handpicked from across the business to bring in the right skills and experience to deliver this change. Julie Rangan was appointed as Business Manager – Insights & Segments Marketing, Andrew Giles as Senior Manager PR and Communications, Ben Crosariol as Customer Experience Manager, and most recently, Jesse Snow as Senior Manager, Product Marketing.
The team’s first task was to understand who Canon’s business customers were and what was important to them.
“It was clear that we needed to get the groundwork right. We invested a lot of time into researching our various business audiences, to understand not only their businesses and their industries, but also them as people. What became clear very quickly was that, for our customers, business is personal. They feel the highs and lows deeply, whether they are a business owner or an IT Manager dealing with disgruntled users. This has formed the focus of our marketing approach,” said Russell.
Canon Business Services’ new brand concept draws on the strength of the Canon consumer brand, celebrating the power of the individual, the power of personal vision, and the difference one person can make in the world. It’s centred on the belief that what makes businesses truly unique, are their people. Here’s a short video (password: canonhype123) to bring the new brand concept to life.
“As a group, Canon, Converga and Harbour IT take care of our customers’ technology and business processes, so that they can get back to what matters most, their core business. The new brand not only gives us a better platform to connect with our customers, but it supports the core messaging of our group – that we can take care of the necessary tasks so our customers can put more of themselves into their business – because no one does it like you,” said Russell.
Bringing to market the combined capabilities of Canon, Converga and Harbour IT will be a key priority for the Canon Business Services marketing team in 2018. The team has already launched four new products this year, packaging a range of business process and IT services for small businesses. These include: IT Security Essentials Assessment, IT Help Desk and Office 365 and Document Scanning Solution.
“Our new brand concept is really just the beginning. We are taking everything we’ve learned though our Customer Experience Research, led by Julie Rangan, to change our entire approach to how we do business and to deliver a better experience for our customers. We want to live and breathe our brand ethos and make sure it’s reflected in everything we do,” says Russell.
Source: Media release
