La POSTE - Brand Communication

Group Brand Audit Project – Report

“Le Groupe La Poste” (French National Mailing Company)

BU470

Fall 2012

Lindsay McShane

Marion Ghesquiere

Anna Hochberg

Lukas Petithomme

Sebastien Pelletier

Eashan Vijayakumaran

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

History 3

“Modernize La Poste” (Business Plan 2006-2010) 3

Brand Inventory 4

Identification of brand elements 4

Identification of key attributes of the brand 4

Competitors and Positioning 8

Brand Exploration 9

Brand Elements Image Analysis 9

Services Image Analysis 9

Survey Analysis 10

Recommendations 12

Actions/Solution 12

Implementation 12

Expected Results 13

Appendix 14

1. Introduction

History

“Le Groupe La Poste” commonky known as “La Poste” is a French company created in 1576. They are the nations lead operator responsible for mail distribution. Before the introduction of competition (UPS, FedEx etc..) in the postal sector, La Poste had a monopoly on mail delivery in France.

On the 23 March 2010 La Poste became a public limited company with the main shareholders being; the State since 2011 "The body of deposits" (deposit and consignment office - 26.32% participation at board). With its subsidiaries, La Poste is the first French postal operator and the second European postal operator.

The four main services offered by the group are: The Universal Postal Service, The Banking Service (since 2006), The Territorial Accessibility (phoning service "La Poste Mobile" since may 2011) and The Press Distribution.

In 2011, in order to justify the new activities of the company, they reworked the logo, and became a ‘group” with diversified activities, not just mailing, this being the reason why they changed their name to “le Groupe La Poste.” (See exhibit 0)

“Modernize La Poste” (Business Plan 2006-2010)

In 2006, La Poste realized that its brand image was really too old and irrelevant so they decided to modernize it. They launched a 5 year campaign (2006-2010), with a main goal : modernization. They modernized all their logistic via the distribution chain and modernized their brand image enabled by their new services, and new marketing campaign using social media. Thanks to those changes, they developed a new brand image (much more modern), and a new company (appearance of Banking and Phoning services) that appealed to a lot of new consumers. This plan was a great success, which was supposed to be followed by the “Ambition 2015” Plan (discussed later).

2. Brand Inventory

Identification of brand elements

• Name:

o Le groupe La Poste is a descriptive name that includes all the brand activities and « poste » refers in French to the mail service (original activity of the company). It is an integral part of the brand history and experiences.

• Colors :

o The colors associated with the logo of Le Groupe la Poste is blue representing truth and loyalty. But mailboxes, agency and vehicles are still yellow to create feelings of joy and friendship to strengthen the the relationship between consumer and brand; also to remind consumers of La Poste past. The power of the yellow color in the representation of the company is such that in the representation for the meaning of yellow, the first is a mailbox.

• Logo:

o Le Groupe La Poste keeps the rocket mail in blue, but in a brighter shade and symbolizing purity. It is much more sleek and simple, it may show a revival, brought a new freshness to the group position. It is also to show the modern evolution of La poste.

• Slogan : "La Poste goes forward, trust is developing."

o “Go forward” and “ develops” are used to show dynamism and movement. This first part is the company’s point of view and deals with the business and the second part deals with the pure consumer relationship.

• Packaging :

o They offer different type of package, it depends of the location of the receiver ( France / Europe/ international), the size of the mail and if the sender is particular or professional ( B2B / B2C).

• Trademarks and Patents :

o La Poste has copyrights on their special events stamps and on their logo.

Identification of key attributes of the brand

1. La Poste ; A powerful group

All sectors mixed, La Poste Group is one of the largest French companies shoulder to shoulder with Air France-KLM in terms of turnover. It is also the second employer in France. Moreover, the company is a main actor of the dynamics of trade.

La Poste makes more than 85% of its "Mail TurnOver" with companies. Mailing represents 6% of their advertising expenditures (2 billion euros) and a quarter of their budget goes to CRM (7.5 billion euros).

Expert suppliers (following La Poste loyalty strategy and conquest), provide them with paper and digital and hybrid solutions. La Poste is specialized in packages’ shipping of less than 30 kg, (the heart of the business demand in Europe), and is a partner in the development of e-marketing for more than 10 years. One of the most important

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