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Marketing Superstars - On the Cutting Edge of Branding
Jeff Turner, senior vice president of marketing and product development, Swiss Army Brands Inc., Shelton
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2/21/2000
By: Michele Beck
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What Jeff Turner of Swiss Army Brands loves about consumer product marketing is the challenge of determining the core values of a brand in order to capitalize on them - sharpening brand awareness and developing new products along appropriate lines.
Turner has spent more than 20 years in consumer product marketing. He worked first for advertising agencies in Toronto and in Boston, then as marketing director for a variety of companies. Throughout his career he has worked mainly with branded products - some strong brands, others less well known. Before coming to Swiss Army, he worked for Nikon, where he capitalized on that company's reputation for producing precision lenses to launch a line of sunglasses.
Turner came in Swiss Army Brands in 1997, attracted to the position by the chance to work with such a strong brand. “European as this company is,” he explains, “there was this whole rite of passage that had developed in the U.S. of a father giving his son a knife. When the company started to distribute its knives after World War II, when the country was returning to the family thing, Swiss Army knives became a core product of Americana.”
Turner recognized the potential, once the core values of the Swiss Army brand had been properly articulated, for developing the brand beyond its current product line. “We hadn't seen a lot of growth [in knives] for some time,” he notes.
Turner and his staff did a great deal of research and discovered that people instinctively respected Swiss Army for very high quality products, and associated the brand with the outdoors and a healthy lifestyle. “Swiss Army has a tradition of equipping you for the adventures of your life,” is the way Turner finally articulated the brand's core values.
Once he had distilled Swiss Army's core values, Turner changed the corporate mark and the overall style of the brand, then went on to develop new products. “The greatest challenge,” he says, “has been that people expect there to be a whole variety of products - a Swiss Army cooler, a Swiss Army sleeping bag, a Swiss Army SUV - but you have to sort through these opportunities and select the product categories that are appropriate for the brand, that will have the greatest return. The brand has had such a history. You have to develop products and positioning that will live up to consumers' expectations.”
Turner decided to go in the direction of giving consumers good multi-function products. The first of these to launch, soon after he joined the company, was the Swiss Card, a credit-card-sized tool that has scissors, a nail file, and other implements.
More recently, Turner launched a new line of products dubbed “Lifestyle Tools.” These include the “Swiss Tool,” a multi-function tool designed to compete with the Leatherman; an “Auto Tool” that includes pliers, digital tire gauge, fuse puller and flashlight; the “Briefcase Tool,” complete with travel alarm; “Computer Tool,” “Golf Tool” and more. Turner says sales are brisk and that the new Lifestyle Tools sold well beyond expectations over the holidays.
Last year Swiss Army also launched a line of travel gear, including luggage, back packs, etc. Turner reports that this, too, was an immediate hit, quickly becoming the second or third best-selling brand in large luggage chains.
Turner not only likes the brand articulation and new product-development end of his job. He is also an innovator when it comes to marketing methods. He says Swiss Army still relies heavily on print advertising (where the majority of the company's advertising dollars go). However, he points out that while the print media can deliver millions of potential customers, it is a very passive method (“You can only hope the consumer will pick up the magazine, then only hope they'll see your ad”).
Turner prefers to take a more proactive approach. Last year he organized what he calls an “Equipped Tour” - two Chevy Suburbans pulling 18-foot trailers which between them visited 40 markets. “People could walk up to the trailer, interact with the products. This was a tremendous part of our marketing last year,” Turner says.
The company also sponsored what they dubbed the “Equipped Awards.” These involved going into a market and seeking nominations for “Most Equipped Person” in that city or region. Winners included a Salt Lake City couple who build wooden toys for special-needs children, and an upstate New York man who devotes himself to saving the peregrine falcon.
Turner notes that the Web also plays a central role in his marketing strategy. He calls the Internet the “most significant development in recent marketing history,” pointing out that within the space of just 18 months it has reached a 75- to 80-percent saturation of American households, a level it took television eight years, and radio 20 years, to attain.
His use of the Web at Swiss Army has four objectives: to serve as a flagship representation of the brand, to present complete information on the company's products, to ensure that customers have an opportunity to buy Swiss Army products, and to build business-to-business relationships.
Launched in 1997, the company's Web site features detailed information on the entire product line, and offers visitors a variety of ways to purchase products, including hot links to retailers and buying directly from Swiss Army over the Net.
Turner believes that a good marketer has to have a good intuitive understanding of the consumer, of what makes people buy.
“There are many books written [on marketing], but I've always counted on my consumer gut to drive me. I think I understand how people make a decision to buy. You don't get that from data.”
Part of his success may also be due to keeping in tune with the changes that are constantly occurring in the buying public. He especially enjoys marketing to Generation X consumers.
“I've been very charged by the youth in America,” he says. “They're a much sharper consumer [than their elders].” He describes marketing to them as “very raw, real, fresh - authentic.”
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