"Refreshing Youth's take on Diwali" says Canon's new TVC

The festive season of Canon starts with a campaign, a TVC featuring the brand ambassador Anushka Sharma which is followed by aggressive out-of-home communication and placement of POS that includes newspaper inserts , posters, shelf talkers, table tops, range brochure, standee, product backer cards , festive promo tent cards, danglers designed in the form cameras are placed at all Canon stores.

The current Diwali TVC is an extension of the same brand thought, ‘What Makes Us Click'. The film is set with youngsters getting decked up to meet their friends at a Diwali bash. The gorgeous array of colours and beautiful people showcase quirky moments during the ‘getting ready’ phase while uniquely linking the Diwali clichés like phuljhadi (sparklers), phataka (cracker) and laddoo in the Canon tonality of mischievous double entendres.

Adgully caught up with Parveen Sahni, Group Head – Director, Image Communication Products, Canon and Narayan Devanathan, SVP, National Planning Head of Dentsu Marcom to know more the campaign.

Speaking about the campaign, Sahni said, “Featuring brand ambassador, Anushka Sharma, the new marketing campaign is an extension of Canon’s ‘What Makes Us Click’ campaign and retains the exuberance, energy and youthful appearance of the brand.”

The entire communication focuses the brand ambassador, Anushka in a playful moment with friends, perfectly matching the brand personality, as the youth icon. “With the new ad campaign, we aim to indulge our audience in what Canon has to offer this Diwali. Excellent products marketed through strategized channels have helped us achieve our targets so far and we are hopeful that this TVC will build a stronger platform for us to inch closer to the target audience,” he added.

When asked: Was the agency successful in delivering what was desired? Sahni said, “Apt on communication, the new campaign opens up with every small activity that creates mood and makes you click. Our creative agency, Dentsu Inc. has done a wonderful job on the new TVC perfectly amalgamating the festive season with reasons to celebrate, make merry and capture every special moment.”

The TVC has been shot over a period of 3 days and it blends well with the high spirits stressing on the freshness and re-positioning of the PowerShot series. As far as media and marketing mix is concerned, Sahni told us that to capitalize on the ongoing festive season, they are following complete media and marketing approach to create a seamless experience for their customers and reinforce the brand’s core message.

Investing heavily in marketing and promotion, Canon has budgeted INR 40 crores for the festive season making an overall marketing budget of INR 142 crores for 2012. We are looking for a 60 per cent growth in revenues in the camera business in the last quarter of the ongoing calendar year compared to same period last year. "We have also reduced the prices of cameras. The drop ranges between Rs 500 and Rs 11,000 for compelling desires. We are expecting to achieve more than Rs 300 crore in the festive season," Sahni adds.

Well! With this step no doubt Canon seems to quite good plans and strategies for this festive season. “Excellent products marketed through strategized channels have helped us achieve our targets so far and we are hopeful that this TVC will build a stronger platform for us to inch closer to the target audience,” Sahni adds.

Their effort is to reconfiguring the photography business in India with youth-centric propositions using a three-pronged strategy of celebrity endorsement, imaging brand stores expansion and faster product portfolio churn with strong range.

How did this idea come up? Answering this, Devanathan said, “With the kickoff campaign of 2012 Canon decided to re-orient the brand PowerShot to literally see through the eyes of the footloose and fancy free youngster, from where we developed the thought of ‘What makes us click.’ The brand spoke with the unique tonality of looking at life with a mint fresh prespective and infectious energy.”

Devanathan concluded saying, “There is a lot of planning and logistics involved in developing such a campaign at a pan India level. The whole process involves a lot of people hence it automatically stands a chance to get chaotic and stressful. However, there was great synchronization between all the teams involved and we have rolled out the campaign well; of course the campaign has just gone live and we are yet to get reactions.” | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal@adgully.com]