Federal-Mogul ‘Expert Brands’ Provide New Guide to Superior Engine Repair

As a leading manufacturer and marketer of engine components, Federal-Mogul offers an unusually broad portfolio of respected brands. To help customers fully leverage the power of this brand family, Federal-Mogul is launching an innovative marketing strategy that aligns an “Expert Brand” with each primary category of replacement engine parts. This new strategy will help eliminate duplication of products to simplify stocking requirements, accelerate product introductions and cataloguing, improve availability, and assist service providers and re-builders in identifying the best OE-technology component for each repair.

Federal-Mogul’s Expert Brands are those with widely recognized OE expertise, global research and development capacity, and world-class, fully integrated manufacturing. In essence, they are the brands that offer the technological leadership preferred both by OEMs and aftermarket professionals. 

The Federal-Mogul Expert Brands and product lines are: AE^® – valves and components, cam train, and belts; Glyco^® – bearings and bushings; Goetze^® – piston rings and cylinder liners; Nural^® – pistons and cylinder kits assemblies.

 “Federal-Mogul has the distinct advantage of offering the most respected, OE-based brand in each primary engine product category. This new approach will reinforce the strength of each of our Expert Brands by forging a stronger relationship with the professionals who install our products,” said Antonio Nuevo, Federal-Mogul marketing director, Engine, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Antonio will now explain to us the reasons for the Engine brands repositioning.

1. Why is Federal-Mogul going to restructure its brand portfolio for the engine category?

We have what we feel is the most comprehensive package of engine and sealing solutions for the aftermarket. Yet, the overlapping product ranges within our existing brand structure brought unnecessary complexity to our offering. 
We want to be the easiest supplier for customers to work with, and we want our brands to reach their full potential at every level of the aftermarket supply chain.

2. When will the new structure be implemented?

We will introduce the new structure on a running basis and in two phases. In the first phase, beginning in March 2009, we will unveil our new box graphics for all products and regroup our bearings brand into Glyco. In the second phase, in September 2009, we will regroup our cylinder component products – pistons, piston rings, liners, and kit sets – into the Nural and Goetze brands.

As we exhaust our existing packaged stock, we will introduce our new boxes and/or new brand. This will allow AE customers, as an example, to continue to receive that familiar packaging and brand for a period before they are gradually introduced to our Glyco, Nural and Goetze brands.

3. What changes will Federal-Mogul customers be required to make as this new structure is introduced?

Most of our customers know all our brands. The primary change they will face is the introduction to specific Expert Brands. Again using AE as an example, customers will be able to keep ordering AE bearings following our March phase-in and cylinder components after our September phase-in while these existing stocks last. Afterwards we will automatically substitute the new Expert Brand within these product categories as they place orders.

4. How did Federal-Mogul determine which brands and products belong together?

Before making any decisions we made a survey involving detailed input from more than 120 rebuilding companies and distributors in several countries in Western and Eastern Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East.

It was quite clear that customers understand and value the OE heritage and identity of each Federal-Mogul brand. They recognize, for example, that Nural is synonymous with OE-quality pistons, and that Glyco and Goetze, respectively, are representative of OE-quality bearings and piston rings. At the same time, customers want to rely on a company that is “the expert” in the product they make.

5. What changes is Federal-Mogul introducing to its brand portfolio?

We knew we had strong brands, but listening to our customers helped us realize we needed to have simpler, more focused marketing communication and make sure we are utilizing the full potential of each of our brands.

 • AE will become our brand for valves, valve guides, camshafts and belts

• Glyco will become our brand for bearings and bushings

• Nural will become our piston and kit set brand

• Goetze will become our piston ring and liner brand

6. How will Federal-Mogul prevent confusion among service dealers and re-builders who will be affected by this change?

We will prevent confusion by communicating effectively. To that end we have created an extensive set of materials, which will be widely distributed in each market. These materials include a brochure providing full details of our new brand strategy, POS items, posters explaining all of the changes we are introducing. We have also created interchange lists so that end users and distributors will be able to find the right part for any need.

7. Who can we contact for more information about this new brand structure?

Customers should contact their usual Federal-Mogul local representative for any questions on our new brand structure. We are planning extensive communication to end users as well as our distributors to make sure everyone has all necessary information concerning these changes.

8. How will the new brand structure benefit replacement parts distributors and their customers?

Replacement parts distributors and their customers will benefit from our new brand structure in several ways:

• Access to one supplier for all of their engine needs.

• Clearer message. One Expert Brand per product line

• Simplified stock profiles. 

• Access to a significantly wider range. AE bearings range, for example, has approximately 2,500 part numbers. Glyco has around 2,000 part numbers. Our new Glyco offering will be around 3,500 part numbers!

• Simplified product lookups at the parts counter or service desk.

• A new anti-counterfeit program (details of how the parts will be protected to follow in the next newsletter).