By John Blyth, Ricoh Graphic Communications, Ricoh Europe
At drupa, we were asked many questions: “How can you achieve that level of print quality?”; “What sort of business development support do you provide?”; “How do I judge when it is the right time to switch to inkjet?”; and: “What’s going on with all these fabulous animals here?”
This blog will address only the last question. “Why all those animals?”
Well, the origin story of Ricoh Graphic Communications’ menagerie is more than 10 years old. It dates back to 2014 when we were launching a series of radical new inkjet, toner, and software solutions together as we officially opened our European Customer Experience Centre in Telford, England.
For added impact, and to give multiple new products their own clear identity, we linked them with animals from the African savanna that shared similar characteristics. This included the innovative five colour RICOH ProTM C7100x toner press which we represented as a Cheetah due to its flexibility and versatility.
But, like their counterparts in the real world, Ricoh’s animals evolve, and when later generations of the five colour device – the Pro C7200x and Pro C7500 – arrived, the Cheetah became a different type of big cat: the Jaguar was born. And it also was used to embody the capabilities of its bigger brother, the RICOH ProTM C9200 and Pro C9500 models too.
During this process, we began to portray our webfed inkjet range as the largest and most powerful raptor – the Harpy Eagle, like the Jaguar an apex predator of the Amazon jungle.
Over time, the “avatars” became three dimensional, animated, and began to inhabit a mysterious jungle setting. Graphically, their world became increasingly aligned with Japanese manga and anime artforms, evoking Ricoh’s own Japanese heritage.
It was in this period that signs of what was to be the most magical of all the avatars began to appear on social media.
To herald the launch of the all new RICOH ProTM Z75 B2 inkjet platform, a dragon, inspired by Japanese mythology, began to attract a lot of interest. Glimpses of it certainly helped to garner more attention and speculation about the forthcoming press and anticipation levels correspondingly grew during the runup to its market entry last Autumn.
And then, rounding out the range of Ricoh avatars, along came the Owl: representing the knowledge, connectivity, and agility of Ricoh’s software solution.
The Owl made its public debut at drupa, joining the other “spirit animals” that capture and symbolise the unique properties of our technology. Our avatars could be seen (and heard) around the stand at drupa. Including on the vinyl skins that wrapped all our presses and that made such a strong impression on visitors.
The avatars were observed mostly in their natural habitat, the HENKAKUVERSE jungle, the spiritual home of Ricoh’s HENKAKU (Transformational Innovation in Japanese) belief system.
drupa was the ultimate high profile stage for our avatars, causing a stir, and constituting a major talking point among visitors.
Ricoh’s avatars have demonstrably created distinctive and memorable images for our Graphic Communications products. And while our market leading products arguably need no help to stand out, it does no harm to invest them with a little extra personality, some stardust
even, an added dimension to their intrinsic appeal.
So, watch the skies and scan for tracks, as the HENKAKUVERSE does not stand still.
www,ricoh.com
