Helping Canon Build a Brand from the Ground Up

This is a dream job for a design firm: assist in naming a product, designing the logo, packaging and point-of-purchase display, and creating mobile application graphics and content. In addition to the fun aspects of the work, the product itself is fun. The product is a mini photo printer that works with an Android or Apple phone. Snap a picture, customize it with digital stickers or captions, and print it out. The photo paper has a sticky back so it will adhere to notebooks, mirrors, etc. Sharing real photographs is back in style.

What’s in a Name?

Canon wanted a name that was short, memorable and personable. If you have ever been involved with naming a product, you know how difficult this can be. We came up with several options we thought were perfect, only to have them all rejected. Either the name had been used in a similar category or couldn’t be cleared for use worldwide. We came up with brand names in several different categories such as words that connoted small, speed, or photos. We settled on giving the product a personality with a real name. After much back and forth, we decided on IVY. It gave the product a personality, it was short and simple to pronounce.

Then came many iterations of the logo:

Logo Development Sampling

Logo Final

Package Design Challenges

The product is only 4.7" x 3.2" and the photo prints are 2" x 3". It is difficult to come up with an impactful packaging design that won’t take up much space on the shelf. Below are some of the options:

Packaging Development Sampling
Packaging Final
Consumables Packaging

The final design chosen has a diagonal pop of color with the product sitting on top. We all felt this gave the package a visual impact. The shape also represented the color of the product — mint green, rose gold and slate gray. We also came up with the tagline “Your New Best Friend” to play off the personality of the name.

One of the biggest challenges was boiling down the messaging so that we could fit two languages on the package. Not everything needed to be translated, but it was a challenge to create the right balance.

Catering to a Lifestyle

The Canon IVY mini printer is intended for millennials & gen z’ers, mainly female users between the ages 12-25. We needed images of this generation using the product. We were lucky to partner with Jim Purdum, a local Los Angeles photographer who captured the lifestyle of the product perfectly. Instead of using stock photographs, we were able to conjure the spirit of the product in use and shoot our own.

Capturing Attention In Store

Best Buy wanted a display with a video to bring the product to life. IVY isn’t the only product in this category, but the Canon brand brings the promise of great imagery. The display needed to convey the fun you could have with the product; the video had to be short and draw the customer in. Harding Display, a preferred Canon vendor, developed the structure, manufactured the display, and distributed them at Best Buy. Harding Display performed with amazing speed.

Since the printer wasn’t available when we were developing the display, we used CAD drawings to create the animation of the product.

Click to View Video

Understanding the Millennial/Gen Z Market

One feature of this printer is its ability to customize the photos with digital stickers and captions. We were asked to help build a library of graphics as stickers, frames, captions and thought bubbles that would appeal to millennials and Gen-Z users. We wanted to appeal to a broad age group, so the selection couldn’t be overly sophisticated or too childish. The library of stickers will be continually refreshed.

Karen Miller, Senior Marketing Manger, Marketing Communications, at Canon had this to say of partnering with JDA to bring IVY to market:

“When deciding what agency would handle the creative work on this new project, it didn't take too much thought. We had worked with JDA on all of these facets of projects before, but never all for the same project. So this was an opportunity for us to finally connect all the dots with them as our agency on one product line. I was excited to award JDA the job, as I knew they would share the same passion and excitement as we were feeling at Canon U.S.A., Inc. about this product. It was a challenging project with very aggressive timelines, and JDA didn't miss a beat. All in all, we were so thrilled with the final work and not to mention working with the JDA team is always fun!”