Canon Medical Systems USA

Sharpening the focus on medical imaging

OVERVIEW

Canon Medical Systems USA faced intense competition from long-established global medical imaging vendors. With the competition mainly focused on technology, Canon Medical saw an opportunity to leverage its emphasis on expertise, relationships and the positive impact it has on customers and patients as a way to stand out.

CHALLENGE

Canon Medical’s visual identity was taken from the global Canon brand, which limited its ability to tell a distinctive story tailored for its target market. The critical challenge was to respect that link to the power of the global brand while enabling Canon Medical to stand out as a preferred partner for the medical community.

HOW WE HELPED

Tenet’s approach to developing the visual system was highly collaborative, combining an extensive competitive audit and image review with work done by Tenet brand strategists and input from the client to visually represent key elements of the refreshed brand. In this way, the visual system was firmly grounded in brand strategy.

Strategic elements included themes of meaningful innovation, alignment with Canon corporate brand values, its tagline of “Made For Life” and Canon Medical’s new positioning theme: “With you all the way.”

Picking up on the themes of human expertise and partnership, the photo style emphasizes humans engaging with one another, with the viewer and with technology to complement images of equipment.

The new visual identity links to the global Canon brand in subtle, yet compelling ways, making good use of the corporate red along with gradients and geometric shapes. The system’s graphical underlay is a transformation of the highly recognizable letter C shape that’s part of the Canon wordmark, replicated and rotated to provide a rich texture that suggests technology without overwhelming the more human elements of imagery.

OUTCOME

Canon Medical’s new visual identity and Tenet’s accompanying strategic brand work has been greeted very positively by the organization’s leadership, providing a solid foundation for continued growth and differentiation in the medical imaging market. A few months after the updated brand launch, Canon Medical saw a 45% increase in engagement with its PR and social media content.