Thales is one of France’s biggest companies, selling mission-critical systems to aerospace and defence companies internationally. Having expanded its area of operations, Thales was able to develop on its offerings, yet no one seemed to have noticed. The campaign was designed to bring attention to this and build awareness of Thales’ scope of activity.
Division of Labour
Research carried out in the UK, France and North America showed that most customers were not aware of Thales’ other areas of product activity. The company needed to communicate these without creating mass confusion. The first task was to develop an advertising hierarchy to minimise the confusion that might be created by dozens of new advertisements and messages.
The messaging for the corporate level concentrated on the brand story about a safer world; sectors were told about big systems for the major categories of civil, defence, etc.; the platform level featured individual solutions for individual products.
For the campaign to run internationally, communication needed to be simple to ensure that little would be lost in translation. Part of this involved a minor variation in wording, from “you’ll find us” to “you’ll be surprised where you find us”, to draw attention to systems that were either very new or had particularly low awareness.
Another way of keeping communication simple was through visual metaphors to help tell a story. Print ads were used in core trade press titles such as Jane’s Defence Weekly, Flight International, Aviation Week, Air Transport World and Defence News.
As well as reaching the primary target audience of major aerospace, defence and security manufacturers globally, the campaign was also aimed at secondary target audiences including governments, ministries of defence and/or homeland security, the business community and other opinion formers.
Results
The advertising was flexible enough for both brand and sector messages across five continents, and carefully structured to ensure it would work in many languages.
Research into the effects of the advertising showed that respondents overwhelmingly agreed that the advertising was clear, credible and had impact. It appeared to be most successful with senior management and primary decision makers.
Geographically, the campaign was most successful in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. It was least received in North America, although even there nearly 60 per cent of respondents agreed that the “advertising was impactful”.
“We’re tremendously pleased with the solid strategic thinking, the development and execution of the creative and the planned roll-out of the campaign. We believe it will deliver the results we need to successfully re-position the Innovex brand,” says Jane Mackenzie-Lawrie, global marketing director at Thales.
