The Brief
We were asked to update and unify the brand for the office and professional printer company, as it looked to expand its operations into the business workspace sector. Konica Minolta was well known for its previous life in optical products and cameras, but needed to bring that positive perception for consumer electronics into the B2B business world.
The Insights
We knew Konica Minolta was still seen by many as an ex-camera company, or by its current customers as solely a printing company – ‘Konica Minolta, yeah you’re the print guys’ – which meant its prospective customers had little idea of its IT and workspace products, which were actually industry leading.
The Idea
To challenge this perception, we needed to make prospects and customers aware of their incorrect opinion, and provide a platform that helped to educate them on the whole Konica Minolta offer. We found this platform already existed as a central guiding philosophy for the whole company… just not in English. In Japanese that word was ‘Shinka’ – loosely translated as ‘constant evolution’ or the belief that by rethinking what you have today you can always make something better for tomorrow. This allowed us to create the brand platform of ‘Rethink… Konica Minolta’.
It was a platform that allowed the business to amalgamate all business units under one philosophy, and to create a unifying brand and design treatment. One that also challenged customers to Rethink what Konica Minolta could offer their business.
This platform was also used to communicate further parts of the company's product portfolio such as its connected workspace and printing products. It also helped us to create thought leadership campaigns, local CRM and direct campaigns, and form the basis for a future ATL brand campaign.
