Sony Ericsson unveils new brand strategy

Mark Sweney
Wednesday November 1, 2006
MediaGuardian.co.uk

Sony Ericsson is launching its first television campaign to introduce the new global brand strategy that led to Bartle Bogle Hegarty resigning from the £50m business.

The global advertising campaign, developed by McCann Erickson, uses the company's green logo in a similar way to the 'I heart NY' motif.

BBH resigned from the account, which is worth £8m in the UK, in July after it emerged that branding agency Wolff Olins had been quietly working on a new strategy with which BBH fundamentally disagreed.

The resignation sparked an industry furore about the client pecking order between ad agencies and branding consultancies.

"This is the first TV ad to build on our new brand identity," said Jo Coomber, the senior marketing communications manager at Sony Ericsson's global marketing team.

"We want to bring the brand as a whole closer to consumers."

The ad aims to promote Sony Ericsson's range of next-generation Walkman phones - the W950, W850 and the W710 - the company hopes will help topple Apple's iPod.

The ad aims to get across the idea that in everyday situations people always have their phone handy and should think of it as music player.

Sony Ericsson has sold more than 15m mp3 player phones since launching the range in August last year.

McCann Erickson created the TV campaign as a one-off project while Sony Ericsson was holding a pitch to find a new agency to handle its business.

Saatchi & Saatchi, which also handles T-Mobile's advertising business, was appointed in September to develop future campaigns as the new agency of record.