Anchor Electricals announces logo change with teaser campaign

A three-phased campaign declares Anchor's logo change and new parentage

A big change or realignment in a company is usually followed by an announcement of the same and while some adopt a simple style, others go full throttle, adopting elaborate campaigns to communicate the change. We're talking about the catchy Anchor Electricals campaign which has generated a buzz across cities.

The teaser campaigns involved lifelike 3D cut outs of men hanging off billboards and drew people in, keeping them guessing about the brand. The three phased campaign, conceptualised and executed by Outdoor Advertising Professionals (OAP), started off with the first teaser launched on June 11, which ran for five days; the next teaser ran for six days, followed by the reveal, which will go on for 15-20 days. It announced a change in logo and also a development in the company.

In 2007, Panasonic's parent group, Japan's Matsushita Electric Works, had bought 80 per cent stake in Mumbai based Anchor Electricals for about US$420 million, while Anchor's board members continued to hold the remaining 20 per cent. In September 2009, the company bought the remaining 20 per cent stake, thus making Anchor a 100 per cent subsidiary of Panasonic. Following this development, the company felt that a corporate image revamp was needed.

Abhijit Sengupta, chief executive officer and director, OAP, tells afaqs!, "The client brief to the agency was to communicate in the most effective way that the logo of Anchor is changing. The aim is to show the birth of a new identity for Anchor through gradual change of the old logo and emergence of the new one."

In the first round of teasers, the billboard showed old signs of Anchor being brought down; here, the Anchor emblem/symbol was highlighted. This was done because in the past, Anchor had changed the font quite a few times but the emblem remained untouched and the trade recognised Anchor with this emblem.

The billboards were also made to look as if the logo, now removed, left in its place a white watermark, while the rest of the hoarding looked a little yellowish, depicting that the logo had been removed after a long time. Lifelike installers were seen handling the removal of the signs. The only copy read, 'Change is inevitable'.

In the second round of the teaser, bamboo scaffolding was used, giving the impression of an installation team working on putting up the new logo units, while the third round revealed the new logo and message 'Anchor by Panasonic'.

The idea stemmed from the fact that any company that undertakes logo change, apart from advertising, gets ready to change the collaterals as early as possible. This being top of the agenda and signs or signages being one of the first that are altered, the agency thought of using that as a mnemonic to convey the change, without talking, or, in this case, writing much.

While the line 'Change is Inevitable' was coined by the client, OAP worked on the concept and graphics.

"The challenge here was to bring about the 'real looking' action that could have been done with either live people or mannequins and fabricating those massive signs - but that would have been much more expensive and a logistical nightmare as well. Rather, we chose to give the life-like and 3D effect on the print itself," says Sengupta.

Technically, creating the creatives were a tough task because each site had to be treated differently, depending on size, position, light and sun path. The agency worked to create 45 3D artworks for the first two rounds, which took about 15 days.

The campaign has been launched across 37 cities covering all the metros and mini metros. Different media formats apart from billboards, such as gantries, bus shelters, kiosks, railway station signages, airport displays, railway station branding and King Long Bus branding have been used to generate a multiplier effect and top of mind recall.

The expensive Patel Bridge in Mumbai has also been used strategically to announce the logo change.

Gautam Bhuvaneshwar, assistant manager, marketing communications, Anchor shares that the company has spent Rs 6.5 crore on the outdoor campaign. "Outdoor is such a vast medium, reaching people everywhere out of home and helps create high visibility for the brand, which is why we decided to announce the change through outdoor first."

Going further, print and other media will be utilised for advertising the logo change, as well as the different products of the company.