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 # 163 |
Case Study |
Pentel
America
SituationPentel invented the first felt and fiber-tip pens and markers. Its products have been used by the graphics arts industry and animators for decades. Its brand, like Band Aid, is synonymous with the product categories it has created.Now the company was about to launch the Rolling Marker, the first ball tip pen to use marker ink. Its new roller ball technology would create a completely new category. ProblemThere isn’t a product category that is more uninteresting to most consumers than pens.Pentel’s primary problem was that it was frequently being mistaken for a category of pens when, in fact, it is a brand and a company. As the first company to create bright, easy flowing, quick drying, vibrant-colored marker inks in the first fiber tips and markers, it had owned these categories exclusively for years. But, other companies had entered these categories with similar products, and the brand became a category. The downside with fiber-tips and markers is you can’t press hard to make carbon copies on forms, frequently a requirement in day-to-day business applications. And, fiber-tips tend to dry out relatively fast. You can’t count on them for copious notes in long meetings. Traditional ball tip pens, introduced back in 1949, all had oil based inks. Their inks don’t come in vibrant colors and frequently blotch and smear. Before the Rolling Marker, pens didn’t write on vertical surfaces or upside down for very long. Their ink mechanisms depended on gravity to feed reservoir ink to the ball. Now Pentel had invented a new roller ball technology. It was about to create a whole new category once again; a category that offered brighter free-flowing, water-soluable color inks, ball tip durability for cleaner carbons, and an ink feed system that lets you write on vertical surfaces or upside down This time around Pentel had learned it was essential to also establish the brand and company when introducing its new line. Solution The
Pentel
is Mightier Than The Sword Campaign: |
people do like vibrant colors and free
flowing inks
when
they write to express their own individuality and creativity in
business
and every day life. The problem with the other pen brands on the
market was that they were all focusing on their technologies and
interest-creating
gimmicks instead of their inherent benefits to users. The agency was
determined
not to make this mistake. It felt the product’s benefits would be
instantly
recognized once demonstrated. Given the preferred use of Pentel pens by animators in Hollywood, the agency decided to use animation to show animation that would demonstrate the new versatile Rolling Marker. Animation offers limitless flexibility. It also ages well. And the campaign could evolve to scenarios where Pentel might align itself with some of the greatest film artists in history. This could serve the company and brand well over the long haul. But, for the launch, we needed to establish the format. The agency produced packaging, locked in a four-week spot load of TV (400 TRPs), produced a sell-in/co-p advertising kit for supermarket, drug, variety, and art supply distribution support, produced :30 and :60 annimated spots, and launched. ResultsThere are times when great advertising is your worst enemy. This was one of them. Pentel had sold in and sold through. After the TV campaign kicked in, its warehouses were immediately sold out and back ordered several weeks out. The animated TV campaign tracked well with consumers and won every creative award in the advertising industry. By any measure, this was a successful launch.Pentel has the toughest QC program in the Industry. This was the case when they introduced the Rolling Marker. This is the case today. But, this was the first time Pentel had targeted the business market. For all the kinds of testing they do to ensure a good product, they had never anticipated that their pens in shirt pockets of business people who fly, would occasionally leak when cabin pressures in airplanes change. This never was a problem with other kinds of ball points, but this was a completely new category. The good news was that the ink was water soluable and could be washed. The bad news was that this successful campaign was scratched. With less than a handful of complaints, the Company had the good sense to immediately pull its campaign and product. Months later, after extensive reengineering and pressure testing, the Company reintroduced the Rolling Marker as the “Rolling Writer." |