When Hideki Ozawa left Singapore for Beijing to take over the helm of Canon China three years ago, he was surprised to discover that Canon’s brand awareness in China was much lower than expected. While Canon had already secured its No.1 position in the global digital camera market by then, the largest digital camera maker by market share in China was actually Sony.
A year later, Canon’s legendary salesman had brought change to the Chinese market. He promoted the “all-staff marketing” strategy throughout the company, allowing Canon to quickly overtake Sony as the leader in the digital camera market by winning more market share. According to a survey by Internet consumer research center ZDC, in the second quarter this year, Canon’s digital cameras had the highest consumer brand awareness (33.9%), followed by Sony (20.1%) and Nikon (13.9%).
Nevertheless, it has never been easy for Ozawa, for two main reasons. Firstly, as a multinational corporation, 75%~80% of Canon’s operating income came from international markets and its Chinese operation only accounted for less than 3% of its total revenue. Marking its 10th anniversary, Canon China generated an annual sales of US$1 billion in 2007, and targeted US$10 billion by 2017, which would account for nearly 20% of Canon’s worldwide sales. To achieve the “tenfold growth in 10 years” goal, Canon must maintain a annual growth rate of at least 30%. Secondly, with competition in the digital camera market becoming increasingly fierce, both Sony and Nikon are no longer satisfied with the status quo and have made great efforts to enhance their competitiveness. According to ZDC’s survey, Sony scored first place in first half of 2008 in China’s digital camera market in terms of new launch brand awareness, outpacing Canon.
Facing organic growth and external competition pressure, the goal for Canon has become speeding up its brand popularization and maintaining its leading edge in terms of product promotion and channel distribution. Ozawa and his team are working on that now.
Getting ‘Expert’ Help in the Mass Market
On May 8 this year, the Beijing Olympic Games torch reached the top of Mount Everest. Along with the flame, climbers were also hauling Canon camera equipment up the mountain. It was a great marketing coup. Soon after, Canon was holding promotional seminars across the country entitled “Peak • Canon 2008 HD Journey to Conquer”. An alpine cameraman and a Canon XH G1 High Definition Professional Camcorder that was used for a live broadcast from Mount Everest became instant heroes at the seminars.
Canon China has its own professional marketing department. The team maintains close contact with influential media, photography schools and other associations in search of such opportunities to promote its products. In addition to regular annual exhibition tours, Canon’s professional team sometimes provides high-end imaging equipment and equipment maintenance and repair services at some major activities, meetings or sports events.
Although Canon was not an Olympic sponsor, Canon does have good relations with sports journalists and professional photographers, who mainly use Canon cameras. Through them, Canon was able to exert it influence indirectly as these professionals capture Olympics moments using Canon equipment.
“Canon hopes that the services it provides to professionals and organizations will indirectly promote Canon products, as they will be amazed by the high-definition images produced by Canon cameras,” says Ozawa.
These initiatives are not only aimed at developing the professional market. “Canon enjoys high brand recognition in professional fields. However, what Canon is doing now is trying to push its brand into the mainstream mass market through these people,” explains Ozawa, who notes that these professional groups and enthusiasts are opinion leaders in the field, and have great influence over the entire mass market.
But the professional market is still a niche market. Only by relying on a broader mass market can Canon maintain rapid, sustained development. Canon has a certain brand influence in larger cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, but for the broader regions, especially in tier 3 and tier 4 cities, Canon’s brand visibility remains low. To address that, Canon has spent a great deal of money to sign celebrities like Jackie Chan as spokespersons. The ads are everywhere. Canon says it’s the first step in gaining mass appeal for the EOS SLR products in an overall marketing effort this year. Four years ago, Canon signed Karen Mok as ambassador for its stylish compact cameras. “Although these stars are not professional photographers, their star power has more influence on the general public,” said Ozawa.
