ADVERTISING/MARKETING: Financial and information technology companies often talk about having a corporate face but, when it comes to brand advertising, they usually steer clear of showing what that face might actually look like. That's what makes Fujitsu's new €3.81 million (£3 million) rebranding campaign so visually different.
The Japanese IT services company is rebranding two of its companies ICL and DMR as Fujitsu, and the name-change campaign began this week in the press in Ireland, Britain and Finland.
Bates London, which devised the campaign, is clearly going for high impact.
The advertisements, which will run until the end of March, are spread over four pages, a bullish media plan in these recessionary times.
The copy is pure corporate speak - the stress is on creating partnerships - and the brand name Fujitsu is stressed with only a passing mention of ICL and DMR. To reach the target audience, the adverts have been placed in newspapers and pan-European magazines with high business readerships.
Their personification of the two companies shows that the IT backroom people picture themselves more as hunky young model types with designer stubble than computer geeks in suits. The page one visual shows two halves of two men's faces under the headline: "Individually we can achieve a lot."
If the reader didn't go any further, the moody men with designer stubble could be advertising an upmarket fashion house. By page three, their faces - one presumably representing ICL, the other DMR - have come together under the headline: "Together, the possibilities are infinite." The body copy on pages two and four spells out the global benefits of the new structure.
"It's about collaboration," said Mr John Pierce, marketing director at ICL. "Our research shows there is a perception that we share the same brand values as Fujitsu, so for us it's a moving forward."
ICL is one of the oldest techie brands. Established in 1968, it is often referred to as the "IBM of Britain" where it began marketing mainframe and later personal computers.
Since Fujitsu bought it in 1990, it has been evolving from a hardware into a service and software provider.
While all its branding will now be Fujitsu, it will be known operationally within the company as Fujitsu Services while DMR will be known as Fujitsu Consulting.
To support the press advertising campaign, ICL clients are being targeted with a direct mail shot to explain the rebranding further.
Fujitsu operates in 65 countries and is a major global advertiser. It is currently in the second year of a three-year $500 million (€574 million) global advertising campaign.
