Stihl Rolls Out Battery-Powered Tool Line

Stihl Holding AG & Co. KG, Waiblingen, Germany, has traditionally been known for its Stihl brand of gas-powered equipment for professionals like arborists and landscapers. But the company’s new Stihl Lightning Battery System line of battery-powered equipment has extended not only its product line but also its shopper demographic to include female consumers, Millennials and Baby Boomers.“These are people who still want to take care of the yard, but they don’t want to mix gas, and they can’t pull the starter ropes as well anymore,” says Michael Haney, manager of in-store marketing for Stihl, referring to Baby Boomers. “And then you have the female customer, they own homes, and it’s easy having a blower — you have guests coming over, and you grab the battery blower, clean off the deck and you’re done. That’s the market we’re going after.”Stihl enlisted Ryan Scott, High Point, NC, to help conceive and put together displays for the campaign. The company’s efforts earned two Outstanding Merchandising Awards: a silver award for the “Stihl Battery Systems 3 Way,” a triangular display that shows the new line’s three levels of sophistication (“AI” for regular consumers, “AK” for mid-tier do-it-yourselfers, and “AP” for professionals); and a gold award for the “Stihl Battery Systems D1 Gondola,” a wall display for stores that lack the space for the three-way setup.The gondola was not originally part of the plan but when Stihl saw the three-way, they liked it but realized it would not fit in all store formats, says Spencer Blaker, vice president of sales at Ryan Scott. “The three-way display represents a great assortment of products: good, better, best, and then an assortment of hedge trimmers, string trimmers” and other lines, he says. “They hit a price point and a performance that matches all three segments.”The displays shipped out fully assembled, says Scott Brevda, president of Ryan Scott. “They wanted consumers to recognize that Stihl Battery Systems is under Stihl,” he says. “It’s a new brand, not a new company. Stihl itself was primary, and the Battery Systems logo and treatments were integrated into the core of the display.”Stihl’s products circulate to about 9,000 independently owned retailers that sell outdoor power equipment, harbor, farm and ranch supplies, and hardware. More than 6,000 of whom have the displays, Haney says. The 15-month project began with brainstorming about the brand and the product before deciding on the appropriate platform, he says.“Anybody who knows about Stihl, it’s all about gas,” he says. “We’re launching into this new area, and we needed to command attention, connect shoppers to the brand and convey a message that said, ‘This is something new.’ Knowing that it’s battery, you know it’s new without having to scream ‘new’ on it.”Stihl and its merchandising partners worked to communicate how long the battery on each piece of equipment runs by spotlighting what you can do on a single charge — a string trimmer can cut the length of seven football fields, for example, or a chainsaw can cut through 100 pieces of wood, Haney says.“We wanted to get away from a conversation about run times, or power,” he says. “What can you do on a single charge, without having to worry about recharging the battery?”In addition, the in-store materials promote the three tiers of the system, with large, washed-out graphics showing the equipment in use and LED tubes that flow from the brand’s orange color to a blue tint intended to convey power and electricity, Haney says.“There’s two main elements besides the high-tech look: it’s got to command attention, and it’s got to let people know we’re in the battery business,” he says. “The freestanding display is an element on its own, but the inline display has to blend with the concept of the store.”Ryan Scott was asked to come up with an “out of this world” look that recalled Star Wars or 2001: A Space Odyssey. They wanted something that would personify energy,” he says. “Our design challenge was to figure out how to capture that energy — how to show battery power in a visual format so people could feel the pulse.”The LED tubes are frosted so they diffuse light. “They’re programmed so it’s a globule of energy,” Brevda says. “It travels up and down, and explodes in the middle.”To draw shoppers into the store, Stihl and its partners put together a March Madness-related campaign that included social media, a microsite about the battery platform, mobile banners and radio, television and print ads. In addition to working with Ryan Scott on the displays, the company enlisted Imre to handle social media, Red Letter Communications for advertising, Power Cord for the online work and Bazaarvoice to track ratings and reviews.The campaign runs through the end of the year but the displays will be up indefinitely, Haney says. The company plans to use sales data going forward both to measure the success of the campaign and to gauge what tools and equipment to include on the freestanding or wall displays, depending on how much space it’s given in a particular store. “That will happen as we get more sales data,” he says. “This was probably one of the largest, if not the largest [path to purchase] effort in our company’s history.”

Stihl Rolls Out Battery-Powered Tool Line

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