Epson adopted a 3D digital campaign to highlight the benefits of its business inkjet printers. Gemma Huckle reports
The number of brands choosing to migrate their advertising campaigns into digital realms in order to enhance and better deliver their campaigns is growing. But as more companies utilise and capitalise on digital channels, how hard is it to create a campaign that is unique?
To make sure it stood out from the crowd, printing and imaging company, Epson, launched a flagship digital campaign using a combination of video, 3D animation and rich media formats.
Epson produces a wide range of printing and digital imaging technology products for large businesses and SMEs all over the globe. It tasked brand communications agency Purpose with challenging and altering the perception of Epson’s business inkjet printers against laser printers. The agency created a digital advertising campaign that ‘aimed to achieve visual cut-through’ as well as engaging with the target audience about the core benefits of the business inkjet printers.
Ranzie Anthony, creative director at Purpose, says, “We knew we wanted to find a visually arresting way to cut through the many messages audiences are often bombarded with online.”
Printing is changing
The visual campaign called ‘Business printing is changing’ was released in the UK in late October. The 3D animations feature Epson business inkjet printers dynamically transforming from one object to another – an action that is designed to communicate the modification and progression of business inkjet printing.
Three key elements that underpinned the campaign were ‘fast’, ‘economical’ and ‘ecological’. Various objects represented all of these components; a racing car characterised the speed of the inkjet printer; a calculator symbolised cost-effective printing, and a wind turbine signified lower energy consumption. The rich media adverts were created in expandable formats to reduce the number of business visitors leaving websites. Anthony commented, “This B2B campaign used a highly visual aesthetic, providing as much information as possible in expandable rich media formats, reducing the need for business audiences to leave the websites they are visiting.”
The reason the marketing campaign was instigated was to raise awareness around the positives of using Epson’s printers. Decision-makers, department heads and those in technical roles in large organisations and SMEs were targeted across Epson’s 25 markets in central Europe, Eastern Europe and Israel.
This group was targeted with videos, interactive design, teaser videos and banner ads. These appeared on hundreds of digital sites and in the trade press, some of which included LinkedIn, Smallbusiness.co.uk, Techradar.com, Theregister.co.uk, The Times and Thomson Reuters. Brochures, direct mail, posters and point of sale were also used to communicate the campaign message.
Ongoing activity
The ‘Business printing is changing’ campaign is running for one year and will be further developed to feature across point of sale within the Epson reseller and dealer network.
Discussing the importance of a strong digital campaign, Maria Eagling, marketing director at Epson Europe, says, “For our business audience, we wanted to clearly highlight the benefits of business inkjet versus laser printing. In addition, it was key that the campaign stood out from other typical B2B marketing, which is why we adopted a more visually-led approach.”
