The project started nine months ago, when the brand consultancy firm, Y brand was appointed to undertake an initial review of what IIJ stands for and to advise on how it should be represented. They interviewed both employees and customers, did analysis of how IIJ is positioned relative to other inkjet system suppliers, created lots of ideas true to IIJ’s DNA and then held workshops with the IIJ team, finally agreeing how to implement the rebrand.
There were several conclusions, the “Power of Ideas” was a theme representing higher levels of innovation, the willingness to explore the development of solutions for completely new applications. Although IIJ has standard products, there is more of a mind set of “what would you like us to help you with” and then exploring “how do we help you to achieve it” rather than simply walking away if the standard solution does not work. The other theme, which is reflected in the last comment in the new mission statement is “sense of family”, both as an employee and as a customer. With IIJ you are dealing with people not a corporate.
The output from this included the modernisation of the company logo, now presenting the company as “IIJ” rather than “Industrial Inkjet”, a new mission statement, new “Printelligence” strapline to reflecting the innovativeness. Philip Easton, IIJ’s Managing Director comments, “I have been at IIJ for two years now, but I have been in inkjet for a long time. IIJ is a special place with special people, the company was founded almost 20 years ago and every so often you need to look at yourselves and ask who are we? The new branding helps to represent the value we offer our customers and better reflects just how good we really are.”
IIJ was founded in 2005 as the sole sales and technical support partner for Konica Minolta piezo inkjet printheads outside of the Asia Pacific region, which it is still this today. Later it then developed into becoming the leading producer of monochrome and colour inkjet modules for both OEMs and endusers collaborating with their customers to successfully integrate inkjet technology into a wide range of printing applications.