Big campaign for new Garmin logo

US PND market leader Garmin will put a lot of energy and money into improving their brand name recognition in the next few months. The company want to get closer to their customers. This is seen as necessary since Garmin want to keep their leading position in a rapidly expanding market. "We are putting a lot of time and energy into expanding our brand recognition" says Min Kao, president and CEO of Garmin. "We are making sure that customers will be able to contact us directly. For this our website will be completely redesigned, and we will soon open our very first Garmin store."

Store

On Saturday November 11th, Garmin will open their first store in the busiest shopping street in Chicago. About 50 Garmin products will be on demonstration and for sale in the two-story building. What makes this shop unique is a small but hypermodern theatre where customers can see presentations on GPS technology and Garmin's newest products. Of course there will also be a lot of very knowledgeable Garmin employees in the shop who will be able to answer every question a customer could have on GPS technology and Garmin's devices. This new shop is Garmin's pride and joy, with which they hope to be able to make closer contact with their (potential) customers.

Logo

Especially for their new campaign, Garmin has developed a brand new logo. This logo is, according to Garmin, more in tune with the times. It is a simple logo, but it is also unmistakingly very Garmin. The globe from the old logo has changed to a small, blue triangle above the letter 'N' of the company name. The combination of the letter with the triangle of course refers to the north on a compass, which is the link to Garmin's products.

Website

The company's international website www.garmin.com will be completely re-styled. A few modifications have already been made, but soon, a lot of other changes will be pushed through. These modification should result in a more user-friendly page layout. Garmin will also start a myGarmin-part on their website, which will support customers with the use of their navigational aid. New software downloads and map activation will become available from this part of the website.

Season

It is no coincidence that Garmin chose this time of the year to announce all this. The busiest time of year, Christmas, will soon be here. In the coming weeks Garmin will start a big advertising campaign, with a lot of ads in both printed media and on radio and TV. The battle for the Christmas-shopper's attention (and money) will start very soon...