Colson Wheels and Casters
How we helped the world leader in the wheels and casters market to increase its Brand Awareness in 500% in the Brazilian market.
From 7th to 3rd position in Industrial Brands Preference in Brazil.
How we helped the world leader in the wheels and casters market to increase its Brand Awareness in 500% in the Brazilian market.
From 7th to 3rd position in Industrial Brands Preference in Brazil.
Colson Rodas e Rodízios / Colson Group Brasil – Operating internationally since 1878, the Colson Group is a world leader in the manufacture of wheels and casters. Present worldwide, it has several factories spread across the Americas, Asia, Europe and Australia.
It is the leading company in global production in the segment and with several prominent brands throughout the European and North American market, with wheels and casters for practically all existing applications – except automotive and high-speed transport applications.
However, in 2018 there was a challenge: Being such a relevant Brand in 80% major world markets, what was missing for the Brand to stand out in the Brazilian market?
Consultancy carried out between 02/2018 and 01/2019.
Operating in Brazil since 2001, Colson Group Brasil began its local manufacturing operations in 2004 – with its own factory and headquarters, it has since been located in the city of Araucária/Pr, in the metropolitan region of Curitiba/Pr. Where within the Colson Group's global manufacturing and logistics management, it manufactures products for the entire global market and resells products from other Colson Holdings facilities in Brazil.
It has 11 product brands in its portfolio, with medical, industrial, logistics, commercial and residential applications – presenting a standard of excellence leads to broad recognition of its Brand throughout the European, North American and Asian markets. Among the renowned brands in the portfolio are: Colson Caster, Albion, Shepherd, MedCaster, Rhombus, Jarvis, Revvo, Imsa, Pemco, Faultless and Bassick. Some created by the organization itself and others acquired throughout the company's global expansion.
With considerable success in the Brazilian market, in 2017 Colson do Brasil had achieved, with great difficulty, the 7th position in the National Preference Survey for Industrial Brands (conducted by NEI magazine and unique in the segment).
This situation indicated great opportunities for improvement, given the distance between Brand Relevance in other markets in relation to Brazil.
Without internally finding the means to make such improvements, we at Burlamaqui Consultoria de Marketing estratagia won the competition carried out by Colson do Brasil, surpassing others among the main Marketing consultancies in Paraná.
The company, at that time, was very well managed. Fruit of the competence of all the leaders involved, represented in the person of its President for the Brazilian market.
Quality certifications, management processes and renowned management methods were constantly being implemented and improved. The engineering involved in the products and the final technical specification of the products placed on the Brazilian market were undoubtedly the best in the segment at the time.
However, a great truth in Marketing was self-evident: There is an abyss between excellent Product Engineering and what buyers and consumers perceive as the best cost/benefit ratio, a basic perceptual lever to make an industrial good surpass the condition of a product. commoditized.
The solid Brand Equity that Colson Group had achieved in the European and United States markets was not repeated in the Brazilian market, with Colson brands being preferred only by old customers who had already experienced the differences compared to competitors, particularly in relation to to the national market leader.
Since the organization's focus was still on manufacturing and commercialization via sales representatives, there was no clear structuring of the Marketing Strategy nor an effective definition of the necessary Marketing operations – which generated a great loss of opportunities in receptive contacts that could otherwise be desired. the Brand. Furthermore, resources were minimal compared to needs.
Our challenge was to organize this situation and improve Preference for the Colson Brand.
Acting to generate maximum performance, we remained aware of resource limitations. Therefore, we made strategic definitions in fields where the best results would be possible.
Our first consideration was that we should dedicate all efforts and resources to improving Colson Group's Brand Awareness. In other words: we should build the Strategy and adopt actions to improve Stakeholders' Awareness about Colson, its qualities and which factors should weigh in choosing products in the category.
This choice was the result of marketing and behavioral analysis of consumers, enabling the effective choice of the highest priority. And in Business Strategy, choosing what to give up is as important as choosing what to do.
Therefore, the Brands of the product families were left as nomenclature to be used in orders and by the sales team.
To enable the success of a Brand, it is necessary to study the behavior of the people involved in the process: from the internal team to the customer profile.
In constant interactions, we had the opportunity to understand the behavior of those internally responsible for the Brand. In your goals, desires, desires and restrictions. We also participated in extensive training for sales representatives, in order to measure their perceptions of the market and acceptance of Colson products. Finally and most importantly, we study the behavioral profile of stakeholders in client companies.
And so we work to define the Target Audience and relevant general actions in such a diverse and wide-ranging portfolio.
For a Brand to be successful in its segment, it needs to occupy a “space” in the positive perception of consumers. Otherwise it becomes irrelevant and/or a commodity at the time of purchase. And in a commoditized market, whoever offers the cheapest product sells. This was not always feasible given the superior specifications of Colson Group products across all lines.
Thus, we presented data and factors external to the company's day-to-day activities for managers, demonstrating how certain paradigms needed to be overcome to achieve the objective of generating greater Brand Recall and respective Preference.
In this way, we adjusted Brand Storytelling. Previously guided by an incremental approach to products, we moved to an approach based on the Value Proposition. If you don't understand, let's explain it in simple terms: Previously to our consultancy, all of Colson's advertising was guided by deeply technical data about rotations. Such as load capacity, strength, construction engineering and other mathematical elements.
However, within our expertise based on the most renowned Marketing and Management scholars, we know that people do not buy mathematical characteristics of products. What people really buy is the perception (that is, the sum of their sensations and their reasoning) that that product will solve the problem for which it was purchased.
And in this way, we were able to adjust the entire Brand narrative to talk more about how people could solve their problems with Colson Group casters.
The same challenges that existed in the way the Brand spoke about itself were found twice as much in the aspect of Digital Marketing.
We made a large part of the necessary improvements possible through scope definition and project management on a new website, a particularly challenging step due to the large volume of products and families that needed to be organized in a simple and easily understandable way – to make it easy to do business with Colson. The execution of this website was developed by a partner digital agency.
Finally, we define policies for social media and omnichannel communications – that is, on and offline.
* Based on data from the National Preference Survey for Industrial Brands, carried out by Revista NEI and the only one in its segment in Brazil.