Textron Turf Car, the multi-brand owner of turf maintenance equipment has revealed a new marketing strategy clearly defining their turf mowing products into specific market sectors.
Jacobsen becomes the golf mower brand. This will result in some existing Ransomes products changing colour from green to orange and changing name. Similarly Ransomes will become the brand dedicated to municipal mowers. This means that one product, the giant HR-9016 rotary mower, formerly a Jacobsen machine, will now appear in the green livery of Ransomes.
Harold Pinto, Managing Director at Textron Turf Care and Specialty Products International, explained the thinking behind this new initiative. “When we looked at our position in the market sectors it became clear that the Textron brands were not as clearly defined as we thought. Therefore, after much discussion and deliberation, it was decided that we needed a stronger, clearer, sharper brand image in the market place.
“We listened to the opinions and advice of our customers and dealer network and then considered how to move forward. Here in the UK, throughout Europe and around our global market, Ransomes has a world-class quality image, inextricably linked with its dominance of the municipal sector and we have to promote this accordingly. Similarly Jacobsen has established a legendary reputation in the world-wide golf market for a quality cut that is second to none.
“We decided to use our in-house brand names to segment our business into clearly defined market sectors. Under the umbrella of Textron, with access to all its resources, two major brands will be able to maximise their dominant positions in two key markets.
“If it’s golf the brand is Jacobsen, the colour is orange and if it’s the municipal market the brand is Ransomes, the colour is green.”
Neil Woodfin, Textron’s recently appointed Marketing Director, described the key objectives of the new strategy. “By redefining Jacobsen as the golf mowing brand and Ransomes as the municipal mowing brand we have met our prime objective of delivering a simple and understandable brand strategy to our distribution network and our customers.
“In doing this we have also met our second objective that is to eliminate in-house brand conflicts. These conflicts are especially evident in our golf product range where, in the ride-on greens mower sector for example, we have the Ransomes G-Plex II competing against the Jacobsen Greens King IV and Greens King V.
“If a customer makes a decision,” he continued, “based in the first instance on brand, then there is the possibility that they will only focus on half our potential product offering. By ensuring that we have a dedicated brand name for each segment of the business, we will guarantee that our customers are presented with our complete product portfolio.
“Finally, clearly defining our business will help us focus on these business sectors and allow us to have specialists within each sector that have an expertise in their relevant area. This has already begun with the recent restructuring of the sales department into two divisions: Turf Care Products, headed by David Withers, and Specialty Products, headed by Nigel Irvine.
“As a result of this re-branding we can now see that Jacobsen machines are our golf range and Ransomes are for municipal use. The first machines in their new liveries will enter the market in September and the full range will be on display at SALTEX. We are also supporting the launch with new product literature, trade press advertising and dedicated mailings to the golf and municipal sectors.”