Toshiba America Business Solutions Inc., an Irvine-based print product powerhouse, has seen the writing on the wall for some time now—advances in mobile technology are changing the way companies communicate, a shift that’s pushing its once-legacy business toward oblivion.
“As mobile has exploded, the amount that people print has gone down,” said Bill Melo, chief marketing executive of the company that built its brand on sales of copiers, fax machines, printers, digital signage and toner products.
Revenue, Competition
It has just under $1 billion in annual revenue, according to recent estimates, and its main competitors are Xerox Corp., Canon Inc., Konica Minolta Inc., Ricoh Co. and Sharp Corp.
“Over the last 10 years—and maybe accelerated over the last three years—we have seen a really profound shift in what customers want from us,” Melo said. “They are looking for a partner, someone that can collaborate with them to understand their issues, their process, their workflows, and design a solution that is going to not only work today but into the future … so our role is no longer to help you print documents in your workplace. Our role is to help you manage your business information regardless of the type—whether it’s static, moving on a digital screen, phone, tablet, billboard—we are about managing information.”
Consider those the bullet points of a global branding campaign the company has launched in partnership with its parent, Japan-based Toshiba Tec.
“The timing of this [branding effort] really speaks to our, not only reaction to change, but our ability to lead customers toward a perspective, and wanting to get ahead of those changes,” Melo said.
The campaign, dubbed “Together Information,” will call for an undisclosed budget to back efforts to show how a business can “create, record, share, manage and display ideas and data,” aided by Toshiba’s “combination of knowledge, software and hardware,” such as Ellumina digital displays and e-studio multifunctional printers with erasable toners.
“With any branding initiative, the objective is to have your clients, your business partners, your employees, all understand who you are,” Melo said. “In our case, what we want to portray is that we are a company that, while deeply rooted in the world’s top technology, is one whose people are really its main asset, because our knowledge of our space and how it applies to solving business [problems], and our willingness to deeply collaborate with customers is our most treasured deliverable that we provide to our clients.”
The concept of the campaign was announced last month, and the effort has so far been confined within the company, which has 2,578 employees nationwide and 372 here.
“Our first part of the implementation is internal, because our associates live that vision every day,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that everyone in the company understands the values that [Together Information] portrays, the culture that we want to develop here, and really live and absorb that here.”
The Frameworks
The Frameworks, a branding agency in Detroit, in the meantime is developing creative materials for the global campaign, which is expected to include print and digital ads and launch Oct. 1.
The print portion will include ads in business publications such as Fortune, Forbes and Businessweek. The plan for digital advertising calls for banner ads with paid search services and social media platforms.
TV is not part of the media mix, according to Melo, who said the medium offers limited possibilities for business-to-business campaigns.
“The creative that we’ve seen so far really focuses on the products and solutions in the context of our customers’ work environment,” Melo said. “They are really trying to support the notion that what we do for you in manufacturing is different from what we do for you in education, and is different from what we do in hospitality and healthcare.”
The branding campaign closely resembles “Together Commerce,” which The Frameworks developed last year for North Carolina-based Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions Inc., a sister company of Toshiba America Business Solutions.
“It’s a nice vehicle to portray that these organizations are affiliated, a part of a whole but separate and distinct parts,” he said. “T and O in the word ‘together’ are also the first two letters of Toshiba.”
The pairing of the branding efforts “wasn’t predetermined,” Melo said, but “it made sense.”
“There is an accretive element to this; when they advertise, it has some sort of benefit to us because of the association. And likewise, when we promote the brand it has a similar impact on them.”
Santa Ana-based DGWB Advertising & Communications is Toshiba America Business Solutions’ advertising agency of record and will help coordinate promotional activities in the U.S. market, Melo said.
“They are cognizant of this and working together to make it a cohesive effort,” while The Frameworks will handle “market-specific” tailoring of the global advertising content.
The budget for the rebranding effort is “still being worked out,” he said.
“We are negotiating with our parent company,” Melo said. “We want lots of money, and we need to convince them that that’s a good thing. This is not our biggest expenditure, but it is an important initiative. It has legs. It’s not something that [is] going to have a big splash in the fourth quarter and then disappear. This is our identity.”
