Japan's Canon Inc will try from Monday to show its office equipment does more than copy documents in a new $30 million US ad campaign that takes an optimistic view of the morning commute to work.
In one of its largest campaigns this year, Canon USA will spotlight equipment like its "imageRunner" series of monochrome and colour copiers, embedded with software that helps manage and share documents or create brochures and manuals.
By comparison, Canon spent $75 million in US advertising in the first half of 2004, according to tracking firm TNS Media Intelligence/CMR.
The business-to-business campaign aims for a wide audience with a television commercial that debuts on Monday during baseball's championship World Series and high-rated shows like CBS crime drama "CSI". Print ads will appear in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Fortune.
Ads created by Dentsu agency DCA shows business employees heading to work relaxed and confident, promising that with Canon "you get to work the way you need to."
"In our category it's a solutions sell," said Gail Esbin, director of advertising for Canon USA's Imaging Systems Group. "It's not about the box, it's how we can work within a customer's existing business model."
Canon, which has also seen core growth build on its digital camera business, is Japan's largest office machine maker and faces growing competition, particularly in colour copying.
Don Dixon, principal analyst at research group Gartner Intelligence, said Canon is seeking to stave off competition from Ricoh and a revived Xerox Corp.
"I believe they are also very concerned about the competition, so this advertising blitz is probably going to try to capture new markets," Dixon said. "The have basically mined the existing marketplace."