CITROËN reinvents for 90th year with New Identity, Customer Relations and NEW DS Inside Concept

CITROËN DS Inside Concept

At 90 years old, CITROËN is opening a new page in its history, with a new visual identity, new customer relations and a new line of products.

CITROËN is presenting its new brand dynamic today, 5 February 2009, simultaneously in 34 countries.

In a difficult economic climate, and in a period of changing relationships between customers and brands, CITROËN is taking action and reinventing itself. The Marque aims to pursue the excitement generated by the success of its products launched over the past ten years, by enhancing the CITROËN brand to strengthen and support the range.

New CITROËN Logo

New Identity

Developed jointly by CITROËN’s Marketing and Styling teams, headed by Jean-Pierre Ploué, and the Landor agency, an international branding and design network, the logo is the first visible sign of change. The chevrons have broken free from their frame and become three-dimensional, gaining in strength and body. Bridging CITROËN’s past and future; the colour red is used for the new brand name typography. The red assumes a new, deeper tone.

Brand identity: Créative Technologie

CITROËN strongly recognise the alliance between creativity and technology; being the first to propose Stop & Start technology, on the CITROËN C2 and C3. It also leads the European market with its automated manual gearboxes and has pioneered particulate filters. The Marque illustrated its ecological and economical commitment in 2008 by confirming its European leadership on vehicles emitting 110 g/km of CO2 or less, thanks to the CITROËN C1.

Rather than aiming for pure technological exploits, CITROËN innovates for the benefit of its customers. It invented Hydractive suspension, the wide-angle panoramic windscreen, and new driving aids such as the lane departure warning system. It has also developed new designs with maximum use of space, as seen on its latest new model, the CITROËN C3 Picasso.

CITROËN has the boldness to completely rethink the automobile. The CITROËN C4 Picasso has transformed the segment, becoming the leading model in its class in 2008 and going on sale in the first-quarter of 2009, the CITROËN C3 Picasso has the same ambitions. With the new CITROËN Berlingo Multispace, launched in May 2008, and CITROËN Nemo Multispace, coming in early 2009, CITROËN will have a range of five, renewed MPV vehicles, making it the standard-setter in this segment.

For the future, the CITROËN Hypnos concept car heralds diesel hybrid technology and the CITROËN C-Cactus is a new vision of the automobile.

Non-conformist advertising spirit

CITROËN’s new advertising strap line is Créative Technologie. Written in French, identical worldwide and rich in meaning, these words form the basis of the new advertising strategy. Every advert demonstrates the promise of the brand and the benefits for the customer, whilst remaining playful and optimistic.
For the first time since 1983, the Marque is launching a new advertising campaign co-developed with Agence H, a subsidiary of the Havas group.

Graphic principles for visibility and consistency
Today CITROËN is introducing new graphic designs, a single typography and a unique tone of voice to boost the visibility and consistency of the brand. The new brand will universally reflect the Marque's new status. The key colours are white, denoting openness and elegance, and red, to express vitality, together with black, grey and chrome, for status and power.

Websites to win new customers

A full 70% of customers who walk into a CITROËN outlet today have visited the brand website beforehand to find information. The www.citroen.co.uk website, the initial contact point between the Marque and its customers, will now fulfil a compass role, pointing web users to local sales sites.

To ensure the consistency of all media, CITROËN is applying the new visual identity to its 20 European websites on the morning of 6 February, using cutting-edge full 3D technology for all web communication concerning the new image.

CITROËN will enter a new internet era starting in the second-half of 2009, with a new European web strategy.

CITROËN Racing .. New looks!

CITROËN Sport becomes CITROËN Racing

CITROËN has entered the motor sport history books with four World Rally Championship Manufacturers' titles and five WRC titles for driver Sébastien Loeb and co-driver Daniel Elena. Coinciding with the Cyprus Rally, CITROËN Sport is changing its name to CITROËN Racing. The specific qualities of WRC – speed, vitality, impetus – are incorporated in the new CITROËN Racing logo.

CITROËN - A New ERA

New Customer Relations

To enhance customer relations and their experience of the brand, CITROËN is transforming its international network of sales outlets, including showroom, reception, sales and maintenance areas.

Outside, transparency, fluidity and colour provide simple and immediately recognisable points of reference. Inside, the customer experience has been entirely redesigned to lead customers naturally to the services they are looking for. As part of the ever-present CITROËN world, dedicated areas highlight the expertise of the Marque’s functions.

The new architecture concept was selected from 12 shortlisted projects by a jury made up of CITROËN’s main managers and the Landor agency, as part of an international competition. The winning project embodies the Marque’s ambition and makes the brand adaptable to all network conditions, whatever the location, layout and level of investment.

Over the next few years, CITROËN’s 8,000 sales outlets will be transformed so that customers all over the world can take pleasure in visiting their CITROËN outlet. CITROËN is implementing the new sales outlet architecture internally through an international network of architecture representatives and externally through a designated network of architects.

CITROËN already inaugurated this new architectural spirit at C_42, the brand's showcase on the world-famous Champs-Elysées. Some two million people have visited C_42 since it opened in September 2007.

Images : New CITROËN DS Inside Concept Images