"3M Turkey Employees Starring in Corporate Brand Campaign"

(October 18, 2007; 3M Internal Sources)

In the first quarter of the year 3M Turkey decided to create a Corporate Brand Campaign in its 20th anniversary in Turkey. The main objective of commencing the Corporate Brand Campaign was to increase familiarity of the 3M Brand to drive growth, in one of the fastest growing subsidiaries in the world. Among the 4 advertising agencies that were briefed for communicating the “Big 3M” Tut agency was chosen with the consensus of the markeeters of the subsidiary. The coinciding timing of the preparation of the Corporate Brand Campaign and the New Brand Identity Strategy has been a very effective factor for linking all divisions’ advertising & communication efforts.

3M Turkey Corporate Marketing Team put together 12 business ads and 2 corporate ads in less than a month and went live on national newspapers and leading magazines as of June 1st. The process started by defining the prioritised business groups to create ads for. During the first two weeks CM&C had intensive meetings with the agency and the businesses to define the key messages, the product, people and the technology visuals that were the four key factors of the Corporate Brand Campaign template.

One of the most energising criteria developing the Brand Campaign has been the fact that we used 3M Employees in the ads. We hired a professional photographer for the day and our advertising agency selected the employees to be photo-shooted. The idea was generated by our Managing Director, Gregg Bennett which has been very helpful in engaging the employees as 3M Ambassadors.

The concept of the Ads were " 3M acting like the lighthouse brand, working for a better life through innovations". Our starting point has been that several Turkish people use 3M Products but do not know how 3M Contributes to their life. The key thought was "Did you know 3M creates products that make your life easier, better and more practical?" and the creative expression that was developed by the agency was very simple, attractive and easy to remember “Now you know who.”

The whole tone in the advertisments has been personal asking the question to the target audience. The main target audience of the Campaign was Professionals working in Top 500 companies in Turkey along with public interest groups and the community surrounding our manufacturing Plant in Çerkezköy.

The Corporate Marketing Team also used this opportunity for PR purposes and had three major interviews, namely Sabah a national leading newspaper, and Media Cat-Media Think, the two leading marketing magazines in Turkey.The Corporate Brand Campaign will continue with extended medias in 2008 including a corporate web game.

ARZU ADIGÜZEL