By SIMRAN SABHERWAL AND SALONI DUTTA
Photography and printing have always been considered part of a serious profession or business in India. Dr Alok Bharadwaj, Executive Vice President, Canon India, reveals how the brand has promoted both photography and printing as fun, contemporary activities, thanks to a new youth-centric positioning.
Q] Anushka Sharma has been the brand ambassador for your camera range for a year now. What has been the jump in sales because of this association?
The main rationale for signing on Anushka was to introduce our change in positioning. We had earlier signed on Sachin Tendulkar, who was with us for five years, and our positioning was ‘high impact performance, popularity, and mass appeal’ then. With Anushka on board now, we changed that to ‘fun, playful and contemporary’, with the aim of catering to women and teenagers, the company’s emerging customers. Our research indicated that the level of interest among teenagers in our products was growing increasingly and our Facebook page also grew phenomenally from less than 10,000 to 3 lakh fans within months. With respect to numbers, last year, we witnessed a 29% rise in growth of our compact camera business.
Q] What are the fundamental principles of your marketing strategy?
Our first marketing principle revolves around technology and making it as highly compelling, desirable and continuously innovative as possible. Secondly, we observe who our message appeals to. We target technology-oriented youth regardless of the culture or city they belong to, and offer products that add to their personality. Thirdly, we ensure our customers’ 360-degree indulgence with the brand, whether it’s through photography or printing, looking after customer grievances or offering tutorials and even organizing photo tours.
Q] Can you give us an estimate of your marketing budget? What does your media mix look like?
Our budget is usually about Rs 100cr, split between ATL and BTL activations. ATL is majorly TV-centric, and it’s increasingly moving towards Digital. Apart from encouraging continuous activity on Facebook and having banners on different photography websites, we’ve also created CanonEdge.com, a portal where members and famous photographers share developments in photography.
Q] What’s the purpose of the Canon Image Square store? How many such stores have you set up in India, especially in Tier II and III towns?
The idea was to provide customers a complete experience of photography and printing. Each store has 80 camera and lens models — which is almost the entire range — and customers are allowed to experience any model. If you have a DSLR for instance, you can bring it to our store and try out different lenses too. We also organize workshops sometimes. We now have 105 Canon Image Square stores in 56 towns. The top 6 cities contribute 50% of the total retail revenue, while the other 50% comes from Tier II and III towns.
Q] Printing is generally seen as a B2B business, but now Canon is targeting B2C with its inkjet printers. How does your communication vary for both? What initiatives are you taking to connect better with the B2C segment?
Canon has four kinds of customers really: the household consumer, the B2B customer including large and small enterprises, the government, and commercial customers like printing and copy shops. 50% of our business comes from the household consumer, and the other 50% comes from B2B. So both target audiences are equally critical when it comes to building brand engagement, experience, awareness, and various other ways of providing customer delight. We have two kinds of printers. Our inkjets are for households and families, and our brand advertising and positioning is targeted to the same group.
Our laser printers, used by SMEs, the government and large enterprises, are sold and serviced by Canon, to ensure creative and comparative edge. Our network of dealers and distributors as well as our direct team and the service staff, are strimaking our B2B business very effective. As a result, we have a total revenue of Rs 1,850cr. We cover about 200-odd cities in the B2B segment, and around 600 cities in the B2C segment.
Q] What growth targets are you aiming for through your printer and camera divisions?
Our inkjet printers in the B2C segment show strong promise, growing at 20%, which is very much in line with our target for this year. Our inkjet printer market share has increased from about 19% last year to 26% right now. Similarly in our B2B segment, with laser printers in the last quarter, our market share touched 30%, which is also substantial.
From a larger point of view, the industry is shrinking. This year has been terrible for the economy, and since the business environment is dismal, the laser printer business has been badly hit. However, our large enterprise business is growing well at about 15%, which is where we are shifting our focus to.
Although the compact camera segment has not been affected by the smartphone market, there has been a 30% drop in the industry and in our digital camera revenues. In the DSLR segment, however, 60% of our revenues in the camera business comes from our DSLRs, which is currently growing at 10%.
Q] With the emergence of Digital platforms, people prefer to upload their pictures online or save them on their mobiles, rather than print them out. How does this impact Canon’s printer division? What are you doing to adapt to the changing consumer behaviour?
While most photographs are in the digital format and people view them onscreen, they continue to print letters, homework, school work at home, maps, etc. For instance, if you’re viewing a Google map for directions, you can fire a print from your iPhone to your printer. So while the applications have changed, the printing activity is still going strong. It is just a question of how we position that and make people enjoy printing on the fly. The printers are becoming sleeker, and we have created portable printers which you can carry in your car.
Q] What is the USP of brand Canon in relation to your competition who are equally aggressive?
It is mainly newness and innovative functionality. We’re technologically superior, we offer stronger service, premium quality and youthful positioning. The status of owning a Canon camera or printer is your association with youth, along with your satisfaction for getting a good service and a good life of the product.
Q] What are the challenges faced in the Indian market? What is the key focus for the brand in India?
The biggest challenge is the existing currency devaluation, cost escalation, and tougher regulations. These along with business risks, reaching out to and providing after-services at remote areas make India one of the most difficult markets to conquer. It continues to be an important market for Canon though — it is now almost Rs 1,850cr and we are looking at a long-term growth of over 15% per annum. Barring this year where there has been a severe economic downturn in India, the long-term story looks promising.
Q] What are the opportunities that you see in the Indian market?
It is an expanding market, a pyramid with a wide base and a very small tip. Geographically, we can grow from 100 to 300 to 600 stores, even in rural areas. I also see huge opportunities for Canon products in healthcare, education, manufacturing, pharma, BPO, telecom, banking and many others. From cameras to DSLRs, printers, scanners, cinematography and medical imaging, we will continue to add more categories in India.
Feedback: simran.sabherwal@exchange4media.com
