Canon strives for a bigger footprint in Chennai

Canon launches Namma Chennai campaign in an effort to increase the market share of their printing products in Chennai

It all started with Aamchi Mumbai doing wonders for the slackening market of Canon's consumer system products (CSP) almost two years back. Following this, similar campaigns were launched for the printing products category in Delhi (Hamari Dilli) and Bengaluru (Namma Bengaluru).

Canon has now brought the campaign to Chennai with Namma Chennai (Namma means 'our' in Tamil), which was launched on November 5. The campaign, which is a mix of above-the-line (ATL) and below-the-line (BTL) activities, will be active for the next three months in Chennai and peripherals. It is promoted by the tagline – Black Lightning Strikes Chennai – and will see the entire city being taken over by black-coloured hoardings, danglers and such.

Canon strives for a bigger footprint in Chennai

VP Sajeevan, assistant director, CSP division, Canon India, tells afaqs!, “The focus of the campaign, as with the earlier campaigns, will be to position Canon's CSP category as must-have IT devices in homes and educational institutes. The effort is to bring back the market share to the desired level.”

PDM India has worked with Canon on all three previous campaigns, which were jointly conceptualised with the marketing division of Canon and executed by PDM. This time, Canon has also roped in a local agency, Wings, to handle the execution of the campaign in some areas.

Says Sanjay Shukla, head, promotions division, PDM India, “Canon gave us the brief to turn the city of Chennai black, which is the colour of their printers, and coax the city with exhibitions, road shows and other such activation routes.”

Canon is striving to increase the market share of its laser printing business in Chennai from the present 13 per cent to 25 per cent. It has also used the platform provided by the Namma Chennai campaign to launch a few laser printers in the market.

The BTL part of the campaign is carried forward with on-ground activation involving about 250 retail outlets, 250 road shows and nine exhibitions planned in different parts of the city and its peripherals.

The selected retail outlets, such as malls, will be marked with Canon danglers, hoardings, product demos and special contests organised around these spots. During the road shows, Canon will do product demos for their assembled target audience by clicking their pictures and printing them on the laser printers, to give the audience a touch and feel of the products.

Canon has also roped in ace batsman, Sachin Tendulkar to promote its laser printers. Five lucky buyers will be randomly chosen for a dinner date with the cricket star.

Canon has planned a spend of Rs 2 crore for the initial phase of the campaign and BTL activation gets a healthy 50 per cent share in this. After completing the Chennai campaign, Canon has plans to take the campaign to Tier II cities like Ludhiana and Jaipur.

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