Campaign: Jet with Canon

Client: Canon

Agency: Marketing Store Sydney

Background

Canon is a well-known and trusted brand in Australia, held in high regard and synonymous with quality and creativity. Over the years, it has enjoyed market dominance in many of the categories in which it competes and, where it is not number one, it has been a very close second.

It’s a brand that has great awareness in the marketplace, but that awareness doesn’t always translate into conversion in the retail environment. Several factors can sway purchase decisions in-store, including staff recommendation and price deals once the shopper gets to the shelf and, with competitors adopting very aggressive commercial plans to try to win share at Christmas, it was important for Canon to ensure market dominance during this major retail period.

Objective

Christmas is a key camera trading period, particularly in compact and DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) cameras. Shoppers are buying for gifts and/or for a new camera for themselves to ensure they capture the best images over the holiday period to preserve their memories and to share with family and friends.

Canon’s objectives were to increase sales, grow its market share and execute with excellence across its key retail partners during the promotional period.

The challenge for The Marketing Store Sydney was to come up with a unique idea that broke through the Christmas clutter, positioned Canon beyond just price and specifications, appealed to the broad range of shoppers and could be executed across both printer and camera categories. The idea had to provide a compelling reason for the retailers to allow major displays in cluttered stores and for the shoppers to buy a Canon product.

Strategy

The Marketing Store Sydney developed a conversion-driving promotion to run across Canon’s total portfolio, cameras and printers, to demonstrate Canon’s leadership position and to maximise presence and cut-through in store.

The campaign strategy was to offer an easy-to-enter promotion with a two-tiered prize fund. The top tier was a unique money-can’t-buy experience that provided the ‘wow’ factor in-store by reinforcing how the Canon brand inspires the creative spirit. The prize needed to create a sense of the ‘ultimate’ experience, provide great photographic opportunities, combine all the facets of what makes Australia great and reflect the creative inspiration that Canon facilitates.

At the second tier, multiple prizes offered regularly over the promotional period increased the shopper’s chance of winning.

Shoppers were already in stores during the busy Christmas shopping period, so an impactful in-store presence along the shopper journey was key to assisting with motivation and conversion at the point of purchase.

Execution

The Marketing Store created a major promotional hook with ‘Win your seats on the jet with Canon’. The prize offered 52 winners and their guests the chance to be part of an exclusive trip visiting the Great Barrier Reef, the Daintree Rainforest and Uluru over a four-day trip on board a Canon chartered 737 jet.

In addition, Canon gave away $500 cash every 30 minutes during the promotional period. The total prize pool was up to $1.3 million in Australia and up to $710,000 in New Zealand.

The promotion was executed in-store from October to January. To participate, shoppers had to buy a Canon product and then enter via SMS or online. Canon products included all Ixus, PowerShot, Legria and Eos cameras and lenses; Pixma, Laser Shot and Selphy printers; all binocular models and selected faxes and scanners.

The campaign was activated across Canon’s retail partners, from mass consumer electronics retailers like Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi and Dick Smith to specialists like Camera House and Ted’s. Major displays in-store captured share of voice over Christmas. A full point of sale suite was designed to tap into the shopper mindset as they progressed through stores, from impactful displays to catch their eye, to full details about the promotion designed to prompt them to buy. The combination of posters, leaflets, shelf and backing cards, camera tags, on-pack stickers and pallet wraparounds provided the flexibility needed to meet the varying sizes and layouts of different retail channels.

An m-site provided further details of the promotion and the entry mechanism. In addition, social media was first used during the promotion to drive interest via Twitter and Facebook. Further on, a digital and social media presence has continued since the trip via photo albums on Canon Facebook, a Flickr account capturing winners’ photos and experiences, and ongoing social media dialogue among those who took part in the four-day trip.

The culmination of the fully-fledged retail activation campaign occurred when the first-prize winners and their guests jumped on the privately chartered jet and flew to the iconic Australian landmarks at the end of March 2011. Their trip involved a host of amazing experiences from whip cracking to whitewater rafting, from four-wheel drive safaris to travelling the Skyrail Rainforest, from beach parties to kite surfing and attending dinners in wonderful locations like the Flames rainforest and at the Sounds of Silence in Uluru.

A team from Channel Seven’s The Morning Show, led by Lizzy Lovette, accompanied the winners on the trip and the subsequent segments were shown during The Morning Show telecast in June this year.

Results

Nine thousand and seventy-seven people (7719 from Australia and 1358 from New Zealand) entered the competition, which ran from 15 October 2010 to 5 January 2011.

The campaign measured well in terms of its success, with Canon’s total units sold during the key selling period of December eight percent higher compared with the same period in 2009¹. Additionally, Canon’s market share of the total digital camera category increased by four percentage points in value terms during the same period².

“For The Marketing Store, the measures of success for this campaign were sales and the impact in retail, and also the level and depth of engagement that consumers were invited to have with the brand. The 52 consumers who won the trip of a lifetime found themselves in a unique experience they would not normally have had the opportunity to be part of,” says Stefan Jeschonneck, senior account director, TMS Sydney.

“The values of the Canon brand were able to be experienced through a unique and experiential journey to some of Australia’s most scenic locations. This delivered a powerful connection for Canon and the consumers who took part, which translated into strong brand advocacy and very active social media engagement,” says Jeschonneck.

“The ‘Jet with Canon’ campaign was very successful for us as a business and the results justify our continued investment in programs that drive in-store engagement and offer consumers a unique brand experience,” says Darren Ryan, general manager Product Marketing, Canon Consumer Imaging, Canon Australia. “In addition to the strong response from consumers over the campaign period, the level of emotional engagement with the winners has been incredible, with some describing the experience as ‘life-changing’.”

“The learnings and success of the campaign will set a benchmark for other campaigns in the typical high peak of the Q4 Christmas period in 2011,” adds Jeschonneck. “It clearly demonstrates that consumer retail activation programs play a key role for brands in driving retail sales and at the same time humanising the brand beyond ways that we could ever have imagined when we first designed the campaign.”

This campaign has shown that in a world of deals and discounts, shoppers and retailers are still motivated by unique experiences – opportunities to share in something special created by a trusted and inspiring brand.

[1] Source: GfK Retail and Technology Australia, Digital Still Cameras, Camcorders, Multifunction printers, Single function printers, Retail Sales Units Dec 2010 versus Dec 2009 (excludes internet and online channels)

[2] Source: GfK Retail and Technology Australia, Digital Still Cameras, Retail Sales Value Dec 2010 versus Dec 2009 (excludes internet and online channels)