TNT Express has announced a new re-branding of its corporate identity changing the company’stagline from the previous ‘Sure We Can’ to ‘The People Network’.
The new claim is designed to highlight the company’s culture, its role as “a network ofdedicated people” and its commitment to strong relationships with customers along with its Europeanroad network.
CEO Tex Gunning said: “We have a clear strategy to focus on our greatest strengths: our people,their human approach to serving customers and our unique network. Customers are not barcodes and weare not robots. We all relate to what drives our customers: business growth with a personal touch.Taking time to understand what customers really need distinguishes us from others. We are ThePeople Network.”
TNT Express spokesman Cyrille Gibot explained to CEP-Research the reasons behind TNT Express’new brand identity: “We introduced ‘Sure We Can’ in 2008. At that time, we were a different companythat comprised express and mail businesses, which reflected our will to do everything from sendinga letter to transporting panda bears even if it was not our core business – we just needed to bemore flexible.”
“After the split of the mail and express activities, we have become more focused on ourstrength. The new tagline reflects our personal and human approach to customers, rather than justthe technical and professional expectations. The People Network thus tries to capture this humandimension,” he said.
As part of the re-branding, the company has launched an advertising campaign in eight Europeancountries and free trial offers in more than twenty countries in Europe. The trial offer allowscustomers to send one shipment with a maximum weight of 100 kg for free across Europe over the nextten weeks.
The advertising campaign is part of the company’s new ‘Outlook’ strategy with the focus on itsEuropean Road Network, especially targeting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In thecoming months, new commercial initiatives will be rolled out to gain and retain additional SMEcustomers.
“We want to move things by road in Europe in particular. The advertising campaign with the trialoffers represents a significant investment in our brand, is expected to drive sales and win newcustomers. We want to be more visible to the new customers to try our services,” Gibot added. Heconcluded that while TNT always placed its customers in the focus, this focus is now being mademuch more prominent with the new tagline.
The advertising campaign rolled out in Europe will include TV ads, radio spots and billboards aswell as sales and loyalty programmes to highlight the personal contact as the distinguishing factorin modern logistics.
Dick van der Lecq, MD of the Dutch advertising agency Etcetera/DDB, which created the campaign,explained: “Previously, customers bought products or brands. Nowadays, customers consciously buy acompany, its DNA and the people behind the brand. Talking to dozens of TNT employees showed us theonly way to express their attitude towards clients: the human transport company.”
