🚀 On the occasion of the launch of the new brand identity “ La Poste Group ", the team We Are COM questioned Marie-Aude Dubanchet, Director of communications for the first local group in France. 👀 When we learned that La Poste - an iconic brand fundamentally anchored in the life of the French - had decided to revolutionize its graphic codes, we wanted to find out more.
So what are the underpinnings of this new territory corporate revealed by a colorful campaign? How to communicate on all the known and unknown facets of the Group to the public as his collaborators? How to position a corporate identity without overshadowing a powerful retail brand? Immediate delivery of good practices! 📩
🤓 Hello Marie-Aude, you are Communication Director of the La Poste group. So, to begin with, we would like to know your definition of Communication.
Rather than defining communication from a general point of view, I prefer to evoke what communication represents within a large public and heritage company like La Poste.
In our company which holds such a special place in the daily life of all French people and which, with 220 employees in France, is the country's leading employer after the State, the communication function carries a decisive importance and responsibility to support development and transformation.
Communication at La Poste is a complex and extremely stimulating subject due to the diversity of the sectors the group invests in: logistics, home services, bancassurance, distribution network, etc. Without forgetting our international activities where we now generate 40% of our turnover.
📣 Your new brand signature, "Proximity is a profession", is being deployed for the La Poste group. What is the message you want to get across?
This campaign explains what Le Groupe La Poste has become, what it does on a daily basis and what is the meaning of its action. Historically La Poste, for the general public, it is mail, parcels, the network of post offices. With the revolution digital and the drop in mail volumes, our business model has been deeply impacted in recent years. We had to reinvent ourselves by developing new professions.
Our new strategic plan « La Poste 2030, committed to you », Presented at the beginning of the year, marks a new acceleration of our transformation and the continuation of the developments already initiated. Some may not have understood the profound diversification of our activities. With this campaign, we want to explain the meaning and show that the close relationship is the common point of everything we do.
To carry this message, the campaign " Proximity is a profession »Revolves around three main areas:
- A first print and display component which gives proof of the proximity and the powerful economic power of La Poste: behind the Epinal image of the postman and the post office, hides a considerable industrial apparatus capable of processing billions of letters and parcels.
- A second component based on two spots TV which illustrates the special place of La Poste services in the daily life of the French.
- A third part, again in print and display, which highlights the postal workers through testimonies illustrating the concrete way in which they experience proximity.
Behind Epinal's image of the postman and the post office, hides a considerable industrial apparatus capable of processing billions of letters and parcels.
🎨 The postal bird remains on your logo, but the company's iconic colors - blue and yellow - give way to a whole new color range. Can you tell us more about this visual revolution?
The daily post office is yellow with a blue bird, like the fire engines are red! It is part of our landscape. And that, no question of touching it of course! The new identity that we have just unveiled is that of the entire Group, that is to say an identity that encompasses all our businesses, all our activities in France and internationally.
It is built around three elements:
- the postal bird in majesty: the bird, an iconic symbol known and recognized by all is installed at the head of our new identity, and redesigned to make it more powerful and also suitable for formats digital. It's a bit like our Nike comma!
- La Poste at the heart : it was essential to put our identity "La Poste" - synonymous with proximity - at the heart of our entire organization. The word “group” is now found below the La Poste logo.
- A color field : this new palette allows us to better encompass all of our activities and our brands.
The daily post office is yellow with a blue bird, like the fire engines are red!
✊ How do you mobilize the 250.000 employees of the Group?
For theinternal, the message of this campaign is clear: we all do the same job, a job of close relationship. The many feedback I receive indicates a very positive feeling. The campaign helps to strengthen the feeling of belonging - already strong at La Poste - to the same community, to a meaningful enterprise. We relied on our internal communication system which is very powerful, based on our very decentralized organization and also made extensive use of Social networks, like Linkedin, on which postal workers are very active.
🤫 Between us… what is your greatest surprise with regard to the development of the La Poste group?
This is the incredible agility that teams across the group are capable of. Most often, La Poste is seen as a large and old company, resulting from the administration. Gold, the distance traveled by La Poste and its postal workers in a few years is considerable. Who could have imagined that La Poste would build an international parcel business " from scratch ”Like Geopost, which today generates nearly 15 billion euros in sales?
The company has been able to reinvent itself and face profound structural changes. Remember that mail volumes have gone from 18 billion in 2008 to 7 billion in 2021.
The company has been able to reinvent itself and face profound structural changes. Remember that mail volumes went from 18 billion in 2008 to 7 billion in 2021
💡 More generally, what advice would you give to young communication professionals to meet the challenges of our increasingly demanding jobs?
I advise young people to remain “schizophrenic” professionals. 😀 Obviously, a communicator must know how to communicate in 240 characters, master the immediacy of new communication channels, know the workings of social networks, etc. But beware, digital is not everything. My conviction is that all communicators must know how to write and tell the beautiful story of their brand. He needs to be a good pen, with an excellent general culture. More than anything, he must remain curious, open to the world, to all worlds and not just to the new digital world.
My conviction is that all communicators must know how to write and tell the beautiful story of their brand. He needs to be a good pen, with an excellent general culture.
🍾 And you… what is your greatest pride in your life as a communicator?
I could cite important moments such as the creation of La Banque Postale, the change in status of La Poste or the merger with CNP. All of these files were essential steps in our transformation. Communication played a key role. Explaining the issues, convincing stakeholders are missions that are at the heart of our role as communicator.
On a more personal note, my greatest pride is to do a job for which I always want to get up every morning. I exercise a profession that I chose from my teenage years, even if at the time this profession seemed vague to me. Since there has not been a day that I regret this career choice.
3 things to know about Marie-Aude
His mantra : her favorite mantra, which she applies to both professional and personal life, is "never compromise". That is to say, never to compromise his thought and his deep convictions. In a job that is not an exact science, where you have to go through a lot of explanations, negotiations or even compromises, this line of conduct allows you to have credibility, to gain the respect of the people with whom you work. and to feel good ..
His favorite advertisement : the La Poste campaign, released in 2001 long before he joined the company. The slogan was " What the future promises you, La Poste brings you ". Marie-Aude finds this advertisement fascinating and extremely aesthetic, even if the public opinion did not perceive it in this way, having undoubtedly been released a little too early. According to her, this undermined the power of a message that heralded a world on the verge of change and the role that La Poste would play in that future.
Her passion : beyond the passion she has for my job, one of her great sources of inspiration is quite simply to observe her two children evolving in this so connected world. She enjoys seeing them think, react and interact. This allows her to try to "remain schizophrenic" too!
