Ingram Micro Inc. has launched its largest global branding initiative to date, a “natural next step” for the company as it “evolves from a distribution powerhouse to the world leader in technology and supply chain services,” according to Chief Executive Alain Monie.
“Ingram Micro has made bold new moves with recent acquisitions, establishing global business units and developing a more global and customer-centric mindset with an agile, insightful and dependable culture,” Monie said in a statement on the brand campaign. “With our new brand, we want to present an identity that is simple, modern and represents who we are. We have the capabilities, insight and experience to help our partners—and their customers—understand, acquire and use technology to be more competitive.”
The global branding effort includes a new blue logo, updated website, and the slogan, “Ingram Micro helps businesses realize the promise of technology.”
“This brand promise is important because, for us—for customers, for vendors—technology can unleash great possibilities,” said Bill Casey, senior director of global customer experience and brand. “Where we sit in the ecosystem, we are working with the largest vendor technology companies in the world—HP, IBM, Cisco and Samsung—so we have … great insight in the direction they are going and what our customers need. So that ability for us to help our customers and everyone else realize that promise is really what we want to do.”
Collaboration, Full Rollout
The brand campaign was developed by Stamford, Conn.-based BrandTaxi LLC in collaboration with the company’s corporate communications staff and Agency Ingram Micro, an in-house shop that was launched last year to offer marketing services to distribution customers.
The full rollout of the new brand—which entails a change to every Ingram Micro insignia throughout the world—will take six to 12 months.
Some 60 staffers are working on it, Casey said.
Ingram also has created a brand video that aims to dispel a “misperception” of the company as “just being a box pusher and a distributor; we’re so much more than that,” said Jo Bandy, a senior director of corporate communications.
“All of Us”
The video features people from all walks of life interacting directly with technology and indirectly with Ingram Micro, far removed from the company’s warehouses and delivery trucks.
“Technology touches all of us, helps us thrive, realize ambitions, conquer the impossible, and while you might not know our name, we are the company behind the scenes of it all, one that has touched almost every piece of technology you use,” the narrator says as a couple travels in a Tesla vehicle on a scenic road.
The narrator concludes: “No other company can match our talent, capabilities or partnerships, giving us unique perspective, insight and influence into how technology will evolve. Much of what was predicted has come to fruition, and the future is here, now. No matter where technology takes us, one thing is certain—you’ll never have a day without Ingram Micro.”
The new brand highlights Monie’s efforts to improve the company’s razor-thin margins—typical in the distribution business—and move into new markets. It’s a mission he started immediately after taking the helm in 2012.
Buys
Ingram Micro purchased Indianapolis-based wholesale distributor Brightpoint Inc. for $840 million in July 2012, which bolstered its position in the mobile services sector and is projected to generate nearly $52 million in profits this year.
It acquired Toronto-based SoftCom Inc. in September, gaining cloud-based capabilities, including Web hosting and domain management services.
The purchase of CloudBlue Technologies Inc. in Atlanta followed the next month, enabling Ingram Micro to focus on “reverse logistics.” CloudBlue wipes out sensitive data from technology devices and determines if they have value on secondary markets.
Cloud-based logistics services provider Shipwire Inc. came into the fold in December, giving Ingram a way “to support smaller enterprises quickly” and set them up for the supply chain, Casey said.
Units
The company, boosted by acquisitions, created a new “go-to market strategy” that involves four global business units: Cloud, Mobility, Supply Chain and Technology Solutions.
“Prior to that, the businesses were sitting within the regions and could be somewhat fragmented,” he said. “The mobility business now starts to be a global business versus regional business. You get that economy of scale. You manage global customers and vendors consistently across the world. There is a lot of value in that when we work with large companies like Samsung—we work the same with them across the world.”
Discussions about the rebranding started about a year ago, Casey said, “because we knew how we are going to go to market is going to change so we wanted to be able to tell a different story than a very regional story. We wanted to tell an Ingram story because there is a lot of value in four business units—certainly being focused (on their areas of expertise) but working together. And we thought that Ingram Micro was just doing more than people really understood.”
