Orange County’s largest public company is shouting its name from the rooftop.
Really.
Santa Ana-based technology distributor Ingram Micro Inc. recently painted its roof in an effort to promote the brand to John Wayne Airport passengers.
The tech giant raked in $36 billion in revenue last year and has offices around the world. But that didn’t stop the company from showing some hometown pride.
“We are based in Orange County and wanted to build upon our relationship with the local community, as well as visitors coming to the area,” said Jennifer Anaya, Ingram Micro vice president of marketing for North America.
The building in Santa Ana is visible from the air to those coming and going to John Wayne airport—at least for the passengers with window seats—so it seemed like a valuable opportunity to build brand awareness and pique curiosity, said Anaya.
Ingram wouldn’t disclose the cost of the project, but Anaya said it was the “lowest cost per eyeball from any type of outdoor media available” and “well worth the company’s time and money.”
That’s no small statement for Ingram, which operates with tight margins, netting less than a penny on the dollar. The company saw a profit of $279.5 million last year on sales of $36.27 billion.
It also helps that the airport is busier lately. The airport is serving more passengers than it did last summer, said Jenny Wedge, public information officer at John Wayne Airport. In July alone, the airport served 816,536 passengers, an increase of 4% compared to a year earlier.
The rooftop idea came from a junior associate inspired by one of several town hall-style meetings executed by Alain Monié, who became president and chief executive in January.
“A member of our marketing solutions group, Hope McCluskey, thought of the idea after our CEO challenged our team to be more creative and customer-focused and to take action, which is exactly what she did,” Anaya said.
Anaya said McCluskey told the corporate communications team and Monie about her idea and everyone loved it. “Things fell into place and the timing was right for us to do something a little more fun and edgy regarding our usual marketing tactics and how we execute them,” Anaya said.
“I guess you could say we were thinking outside the box and ended up on top of the box,” she added.
The entire project took about seven full business days to complete, including the actual making of the stencil, the tracing and painting portion.
Ingram Micro put to work its facilities team and also hired Irvine-based commercial painting contractor Le Tourneau Painting to do the job.
About four gallons of paint were used to create the blue, red and black logo. The dimensions of the finished product are 75 feet by 40 feet.
Standing Ovation
Ingram Micro created a time-lapsed video showing the process from start to finish and showed it to the Santa Ana employees at a recent town hall meeting.
“The employees loved it and gave a standing ovation to our facilities team. There was a feeling of pride that we all felt,” Anaya said.
Ingram Micro is a Fortune 100 company and holds the title as the world’s largest technology distributor. It’s also a leading technology sales, marketing and logistics company for the IT industry worldwide.
Ingram Micro was founded in 1979 and has offices in 26 countries. It has 15,500 employees, with 880 of them in Orange County. The company is traded on the New York Stock Exchange and had a recent market value of $2.3 billion.
