Marketing

Ricoh’s logo is simple. It has a white background with ‘Ricoh’ in bold and capitalized in red and the words ‘imagine.’ and ‘change.’ Ricoh’s logo captures the essence of Ricoh by stating their brand message within it. Ricoh’s brand message is “imagine. change.” Ricoh is constantly looking or imagining new ways to innovatively change their company or how they are involved in the market and help their customers. The Ricoh website states, “We are always moving forward with new ideas and new ways of improving lives. Change is driven by imaginative thinking. That is the proposition of the Ricoh brand,” (“Brand Message,” n.d.). The Ricoh logo itself has undergone innovative change four times before landing on the current logo (“Ricoh Logo,” n.d.). The transformation of Ricoh’s logo can be viewed from https://www.ricoh.com/about/company/history/logo/. The current logo encompasses the brand message because it is the first Ricoh logo to have the brand message within it. The current logo also establishes the global recognition and customer values that Ricoh strives to give (“Ricoh Logo,” n.d). The Ricoh logo also represents ‘The Ricoh Way’ by showing that Ricoh wants to continually improve the wellbeing of all those involved with Ricoh (“The RICOH Way,” n.d.).

Akira Oyama is a Corporate Executive Vice President and General Manager of Sales and Marketing Group of Ricoh Global. Glenn Laverty is the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Shared Services of Ricoh Americas as of April 1, 2017 (“Leadership Team,” n.d.). His role as with the Shared Services Business Group, is to make Ricoh’s marketing efforts support the key business units in U.S. and Canada (“Leadership Team,” n.d.). Laverty also has to align the marketing of Ricoh with the corporate’s global services roles (“Leadership Team,” n.d.). He has had several previous roles in the Ricoh Americas and Canada corporation, where he was the Vice President of Marketing, thus leading him to make several acquisitions (“Leadership Team,” n.d.). As to bring forth Ricoh’s global roles, he managed the international responsibilities of Ricoh’s first Services business in Ricoh Document Management (“Leadership Team,” n.d.).  He was also recognized as a Customer Experience leader throughout the printing technology industry (“Leadership Team,” n.d.). Laverty main role is to make sure that Ricoh’s marketing strategy aligns with their brand message of bringing innovative change and their corporate social responsibilities, especially with sustainability.

Ricoh’s current marketing strategy grants their customers with experience excellence (“INTERACT,” 2018). Their strategy consists of their INTERACT 2018 model, which brings their INTERACT model to its eighth year, and new Marketing Innovators Symposium series (“INTERACT,” 2018). These events allow their customers to get a collaborative hand-on experience to find new and innovative ways to market printing and communications technologies (“INTERACT,” 2018). INTERACT is focused on the needs of its users by addressing how print allows businesses to grow through business development trends, cutting-edge multi-channel workflow management strategies and the fast-developing future of commercial and industrial print solutions (“INTERACT,” 2018). INTERACT allows the users to be able to examine and refine Ricoh’s future plans (“INTERACT,” 2018). Ricoh’s Marketing Innovators Symposium allowed its attendees to have a forum of direct mail to specialists in the omi-channel technology that will help them discuss upcoming communication trend in marketing (“INTERACT,” 2018). The four P’s of marketing include product, price, place and promoting. The products Ricoh provides are print technologies. Some of Ricoh’s product are interactive whiteboards, printers and copiers, commercial and industrial printing, projectors, video conferencing, cameras, ink and toner, consumables, maintenance and parts, software and technological and management services and resources. Ricoh’s software products include document management, cost control and recovery, mobile printing and sharing, printer security, device setup and management and commercial and industry print. The prices for the commercial and industry products for Ricoh are on the higher end, but also reasonable so they can compete with their competitors. Their individual products again are on the higher end, but also within a reasonable range to compete with competitors. The place where Ricoh products are sold are online at the Ricoh website, Ricoh corporate locations, Ricoh dealers or direct sales. Ricoh promotes their products through advertisements such as the San-ai Dream Center and the Eco Billboard, sponsorships of several sporting events and arenas, partnership with the Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, Japan, sporting arenas, such as Ricoh Coliseum and Ricoh Arena and their community building such as the Ricoh Future House.

Ricoh could use the Think Google tools to address and obtain certain resources. Think Google aides in marketing resources, such as Data & measurement, Experience & Design, omnichannel, and Programmatic Advertising. They also provide Advertising channels on emerging technology and customer insights. Ricoh could use the Display Benchmarks Tool to receive up-to-date benchmarks, such as click-through rate, interaction rate and time, impression rate and video completions, in the printing technologies industry. The Display Benchmarks Tools displays results in three different map forms, such as media gallery, ad format, or trend view. Ricoh could also use the Shopping Insights Tool. This tool gives a view of product popularity, so Ricoh could use this to understand which of their products is popular and/or why their products may be less popular than a competitor. This tool will also help Ricoh see the trends of their products over time, such upward and downward movement of products in different cities and regions. This tool can inform Ricoh on the data to make marketing decisions. Google Trends allows Ricoh marketers to see different trends in the printing technologies industry. I did a Google Trend on web search in computer and electronics between HP Printer and Ricoh. HP is a competitor of Ricoh. In the trend, HP printer kept a higher interest over time as compared with Ricoh, but Ricoh did eventually match HP. Ricoh had higher interest in several states over HP. I also did a Google Trend of sustainable development and Ricoh. Sustainable development is becoming more and more popular. Ricoh was high in interest, so it seems that Ricoh is in a good market for wanting to make their company and products more sustainable. Google Analytics would help Ricoh to identify the amount of web traffic their website is experiencing. If they are getting lots of web traffic, its means that a high number of people are looking at their website, which means more potential customers. Also, Google Analytics could help Ricoh discover which products the customers are viewing on their website, so they know which products are popular. Also, Ricoh could use Google Analytics to see how to improve their products that are not popular.