Breaking News: When you re-brand the biggest of them all.

Mining company BHP has dropped Billiton from name in $10m ad campaign as the company announces a ‘clean brand change’, unveiling campaign to emphasise its Australian roots .

BHP’s Olympic Dam copper-gold-uranium mine near Roxby Downs in South Australia. The company is dropping the name Billiton from its name. Photograph: Bhp Billiton/AAP

From: Australian Associated Press and re-reporting, and the BHP website, Monday 15 May 2017 10.52 AEST

BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest miner, is re-branding, changing its name back to just BHP from this week.

The company is rolling out a $10m advertising campaign that includes television ads and a new slogan, “Think Big”, to facilitate the change.

“We started working on this 18 months ago. We realised we had to start by telling people what BHP Billiton is and what we do,” the chief external affairs officer, Geoff Healy, said.

The miner famously started out life in 1885 as the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, or BHP, and retained that name until its 2001 merger with Anglo-Dutch mining company Billiton Plc.

The merged business continues to be listed in both London and Australia, while its shares are also traded on stock exchanges in the US and South Africa.

The re-branding comes at an eventful time for the resources giant. For example, activist hedge fund Elliott Advisors has launched a public campaign over the last month, calling for a significant restructure of BHP Billiton’s operations, by merging the UK and Australian entities into a single London-listed company and spinning off its US petroleum business for a New York listing.

BHP has also suffered financial and reputational damage from the November 2015 dam disaster at its Samarco joint venture in Brazil that killed 19 people and led to widespread environmental damage.

Healy denied any link between the re-branding and recent developments. “The timing now is good but we don’t look at it as an event. This has been in the works for many months,” he said. “This is a clean brand change for the company.”

Healy said Think Big was designed to demonstrate the important role BHP plays in the Australian economy and community and more broadly in global economic growth and development.

“We fundamentally believe that as society changes it is up to us to make the case – more confidently and effectively – for the positive role that well-run and responsible companies play in society,” said Mr Healy.

“The advertisements will talk about the importance of our Australian heritage, our contribution and our commitment to communities where we operate. The campaign will focus on what people can and should expect of us.

“In launching Think Big, we will take the opportunity to change our logo and move to a brand that Australians have known us by for generations – BHP. This abbreviated simple expression of our organisation is used colloquially around the world.”

The initial campaign includes two 30 second TV commercials, which will be accompanied by print and online advertisements and leveraged through social media. As the campaign progresses, the materials will grow and evolve.

Think Big will also be launched globally in a phased approach into other markets where BHP is located.

The cast of the Think Big brand campaign is largely BHP employees. For many, it was their first experience in front of the camera. Local crews worked at various locations including Broken Hill, the birthplace of BHP.

He said the company had conducted surveys to gauge the response among investors in London and South Africa, and the research supported the final decision.

The new BHP logo. We think.

Although it is still on the company website, (so we are relying on the Advertiser in SA and hoping that they’ve got the right rendition of the new logo) the company is also reported to be changing all its significant branding from today, including its well-known and somewhat controversial “four-blob logo”, but has no immediate plans to formally change its listed name.

“All that will happen gradually, in due course, when it makes sense to do it,” Healy told reporters.

At MOP, we think this move makes good sense. After all, as the story says, it is just reflecting a known fact, which is that “BHP” is how the company is called in general parlance, pretty much all around the world, and especially in its home base. It always makes sense to align your brand with how people refer to it, such as when we recommended to Moonee Valley Racing Club that they re-brand themselves as “The Valley”, as that how everyone referred to the famous old Club anyway.

If you are lucky enough to have a brand that is part of the language, what is the point trying to teach the public something else? After all, does anyone still know that IBM means International Business Machines?

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Breaking News: When you re-brand the biggest of them all.

Mining company BHP has dropped Billiton from name in $10m ad campaign as the company announces a ‘clean brand change’, unveiling campaign to emphasise its Australian roots .

Author: Stephen Yolland

It's All About The Conversation - Do Leave A Comment! Cancel reply