Bombardier has unveiled a new global brand platform touting forward-thinking transportation solutions.
Developed by Taxi Montreal, “The Evolution of Mobility” has been in development since February 2011. It is the result of extensive consultation and research involving members of Bombardier’s global management team and various departments such as investor relations, government relations, human resources and marketing.
Although Bombardier operates in more than 60 countries, it is the first time the company has adopted a global positioning, said Sean Saraq, strategic planner at Taxi.
Bombardier has been built through numerous acquisitions in both the aerospace and rail transportation categories, creating numerous cultures and histories within the company rather than a unified vision, said Saraq. At the the same time, its two primary business units – Bombardier Transportation and Bombardier Aerospace – are headquartered in Germany and Canada respectively.
One of the first questions Taxi asked Bombardier’s senior executives when embarking on the project was how they would summarize the company in one minute. The answers, said Saraq, were “all over the map” – some focusing on Bombardier’s Quebec origins in the 1930s, others focusing on its trains and planes. “There wasn’t a common starting point for everyone on how to talk about Bombardier,” he said.
The agency subsequently reviewed brand literature and spoke with key personnel across all areas of the company to determine the brand’s attributes and benefits to create what Saraq calles a “brand foundation” that summarized key information about the company.
“The Evolution of Mobility” beat out two other proposed approaches – one focusing on the company’s hardware (i.e. its trains and planes) and the other on its people. “Evolution” was adopted, said Saraq, because it could be used to emphasize Bombardier as a “future-oriented” company.
“However people choose to travel, they’ll find a Bombardier product ready to transport them, from a groundbreaking train portfolio to some of the most iconic aircraft on the planet,” said Saraq. “Bombardier is a grounded visionary that sees far ahead, but delivers today.”
The brand platform is crystallized in a two-minute video that debuted on an employee-facing microsite and can now be seen on YouTube. Featuring an original score created by Montreal-based Boogie Studio, the video combines footage shot by Taxi with images of Bombardier’s products culled from hours of supplied footage.
The first campaign under the new brand platform will debut this fall in New York, and will target the investor community.
