Kyocera's New Brand: 'People-Friendly'
April 16, 2007
Kyocera Mita America, Inc. unveiled a new corporate branding initiative aimed at elevating the company’s market position in the lucrative U.S. peripheral arena. By launching a series of strategic television, radio and print ads, Kyocera will showcase how its award-winning printer and multi-function product (MFP) models aggressively compete – on reliability, technology and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) – with comparable solutions in the market.
Funded by a multi-million dollar advertising and public relations effort, Kyocera’s 2007 “People-Friendly” initiative uses independent market research to demonstrate Kyocera’s lowest (TCO) value model – industry-wide. In addition, the new campaign highlights Kyocera’s customer commitment, noting its solutions as user-friendly, easy-to-deploy and cost effective when compared to similar machines offered by market players, HP and Lexmark.
“HP and Lexmark control a majority of the business printer market, yet in many cases business owners do not realize that our printer technology matches theirs, but at a significant cost advantage over a very short time,” said Mike Pietrunti, president and COO of Kyocera Mita America. In the new print ads, Kyocera printers are shown alongside both an HP model, and alongside a model from Lexmark. This illustrates the end-user savings of over $9,500 and $11,000 versus HP and Lexmark respectively during a three-year period.”
Pietrunti continued, “This advertising campaign is a bold yet strategic step for Kyocera. We believe it is the customer’s right to know the potential cost savings our technology offers, especially as organizations are working hard to consolidate costs and minimize operational expenses, without sacrificing productivity or product reliability.”
The campaign seeks to emphasize the technical advantages of Kyocera’s printer and MFP models, including cartridge-free printers and long-life consumables, which decrease operating costs. Significant advancements in Kyocera’s high-quality color imaging technology are also noted in the new advertisements, which underscore Kyocera’s commitment to delivering vibrant color output solutions that add impact to business-critical printed documents.
“We’re extremely proud of our newest line-up of award-winning, reliable, cost-effective Color MFPs and color-laser printers, and are confident our new branding campaign will convey our corporate and product strengths to our key audiences,” Pietrunti added.
Targeting C-level executives and IT decision-makers in both enterprise and small-to-medium sized businesses (SMB), Kyocera’s new advertisements will air on recognized broadcast news programs such as 60Minutes and ABC News Sunday, as well as prime time and morning cable news networks. In addition, print ads will appear in select IT, trade and business publications, enabling Kyocera to increase general awareness of its message across multiple media platforms.
"Kyocera has garnered positive mindshare within their target market, but this new branding campaign has the opportunity to increase awareness among new audiences, especially the larger enterprise segment," said Keith Kmetz, vice president, Hardcopy Peripherals Solutions and Services, IDC. "The company's renewed advertising approach should educate the market on product capabilities, while highlighting Kyocera's customer commitment to high reliability and low system operational costs."
Created by New York City-based advertising agency, Seiter-Miller, Kyocera’s new advertisements focus on four key campaigns: “Faces,” “People,” “Color,” and “Printer.”
The “Faces” and “People” ads place a Kyocera printer in a side-by-side comparison with printers from competitors, HP and Lexmark. These ads communicate Kyocera’s significant TCO savings and technical advantages as compared to its market rivals.
The “Color” and “Printer” ads are themed “The Wonder of Color,” and illustrate how affordable Kyocera color MFP’s and printers enable users to create more powerful and persuasive business documents.
“Kyocera is an intelligent, innovative company with a plan to rapidly grow its presence in the document imaging and printer marketplace,” said Livingston Miller, executive creative director for Seiter Miller. “We’re confident the branding initiatives developed for Kyocera will help facilitate that growth, and clearly communicate the benefits of using Kyocera solutions.”
The Kyocera models that are used in this campaign are the Kyocera FS-C5030N, and the Kyocera FS-C5025N. Kyocera showcased the new campaign at its annual dealer meeting held in Las Vegas last week. For more information on Kyocera’s U.S. branding initiative and advertising campaigns, please visit Kyocera’s web site, at: www.kyoceramita.com/us.
