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Local flavour in Canon’s campaign

BANGALORE: The city with the highest personal computer penetration in India — 15 per cent — and the highest proportion of PCs with attached printers — 40 per cent — would appear to be the place where printing and imaging leader Canon would sell a healthy chunk of its products. Ironically, Bangalore buys significantly less inkjet and laser printers than the company’s national average.

To change all that, the Japan-based imaging player has opened a Rs. 4 crore campaign war chest (for starters, that is!) and launched “Namma Bengaluru” — a focused campaign to capture the hearts, minds (and purses) of tech-savvy families in this city of 6.5 million, when it comes to buying printers and digicams.

Kick starting the campaign on Thursday, Canon India’s president and chief executive Kensaku Konishi said the Bangalore drive was part of the company’s aggressive plan to sustain a healthy 40 per cent growth to cross revenues of Rs. 710 crore in 2008 and Rs. 1,000 crore by 2009 in India.

It follows a similar “Amchi Mumbai” and “Hamari Dilli” campaign last year; Chennai is next on the road map after Bangalore.

This time, the company seems to bank on an “agni asthra” to hit its national target number — a fifth of all inkjets sold in India — and is focusing its marketing savvy on one flagship product: which it calls “Wonderbox” — internationally known as the Pixma MP145 all-in-one Photo printer-copier-scanner. The machine, arguably the most compellingly priced entry-level multi function photo quality printer offered in India today, will be available for Rs. 3995. Alok Bharadwaj, senior vice-president, Canon India, said the “Namma Bengaluru” game plan included a string of retail partners, a soon-to-open interactive imaging showroom on the Brigade Road, an international grade camera repair centre, 14 Original Ink Cartridge (OIC) stores and 26 hoardings around town, a print media campaign, a special jingle for advertising on FM radio and carnivals in select malls and shopping areas. To capture corporates, Canon plans a special Business-to Business Solution Centre later this year that will focus on enterprise computing product lines like lasers and high end graphics machines.

Canon is number one in copier and digital camera sales in India — and hopes the Bangalore campaign will improve its share in printers where it is now number 2 to HP, Mr. Bharadwaj told The Hindu.

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