GORE has been in the textile business since 1958. A material called expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) lies at the heart of over 60 innovative products – that range from dental floss, guitar strings, window screens, wires/cables, filters and surgical products.  GORE is best known for their 25 year-old GORE-TEX fabric often used as an “ingredient brand” in Outerware/Footware. GORE-TEX recently launched a multi-year global consumer branding campaign designed to promote brand insistence in order to compete in an aggressively marketed category.

GORE uses a “lattice” structure to encourage personal initiative – there are no organization charts, chains of command or predetermined channels of communication.  People are hired for general work areas and teams organize around opportunities, commit to projects that match their skills and leaders emerge.  This structure produces constant innovations (primarily on GORE-TEX brands).

Fred recently met Steve Shuster (GORE Global Brand Manager) at a conference in Chicago. Steve mentioned that GORE has a hard time telling their complex story in a focused and motivating way – to internal audiences and external audiences (including potential employees). Click here to read more »

After a busy hiatus working on brands all over The River, we are back in the Garage and we’re feeling a little hungry. Let’s take a drive up the road there. How about that place. Yeah, right there, on the left. Chipotle Mexican Grill.

Founder Steve Ells has the place cooking in every way, foodwise and businesswise. How about this for a tagline: “Food With Integrity.” We think he means it.

It’s not a marketing slogan, he explains on the Chipotle website. It’s about an authentic experience with fresh ingredients. He talks about food that’s better tasting, from better sources, that’s better for the environment, better for the animals and the farmers who raise them. It’s better for the people who eat at this all fast food grill that’s anti-fast food in every way. Click here to read more »

Today we crank up the heat in the Garage as we pull Viking into bay number seven (okay, some of it spilled over into eight and nine as well). The place hasn’t smelled this good since Bobby Flay did a fuel-injected throwdown at Buz & Ned’s Real Barbecue up the road. Is that Emeril over there next to the grease gun?

Viking used to be just a serious, high-end chunk of cooking metal, a professional range that took its queue from restaurant-quality cooking prowess and built a range for the home. That was then, this is whoa. Click here to read more »

Today we’re going to pull an entire new trend into several bays, uncork the top and look behind the labels: Simplified Wine Retailers. And we’re going to open it up to several new mechanics who don’t work at Big River but who have various levels of expertise on the subject. It will be a vino-for-all.

Guest Mechanics: Kristin Patterson (brand and marketing director for national companies); Scott Mackey (legendary copywriter and creative director); Dee Briggs (national broadcast producer); and Doug Adams (owner of The Country Vintner, the premier fine wine importer and distributor in the Metro D.C. market and the mid-Atlantic). Click here to read more »

What’s more natural than tools in a garage. In today’s Brand Garage, we’re looking at the ubiquitous Leatherman tools. They make 16 addictive little pocket-sized devices plus an adapter. They also manufacture about 15 different kinds of knives for those who want more cut and less tool. We’re talking tools today, however. Maybe the knives will come in a later exam.

With a Leatherman tool you can cut, slice, saw, screw, scissor, file, snap, open, pry, ratchet, drill, poke, tweeze, squeeze, measure, plier and more. The famed Swiss Army Knife has some serious competition in the tough-as-nails, superfunctional Leatherman tools. And the Leatherman is just flat cool. Click here to read more »

Whether you call them “Slyders” or “Belly Bombers,” Krystal and White Castle have built miniburger empires between their little steamed buns. White Castle says they are the first fast food hamburger chain ever. Krystal, in fact, is the second-oldest chain in the U.S. and is  headquartered in Chattanooga, TN; White Castle hails from Columbus, OH.

We’re not the first mechanics to hoist these two burgered twins up beside each other and check for identical markings. But we liked the idea of a fresh examination.

These two facing down in today’s garage is like Alabama playing Notre Dame or Michigan facing Ohio State in a bowl game. There is just so much tradition and history between them. But you can’t eat tradition or history, so let’s sniff that steaming, oniony aroma and chow down on these two burger chains right now. Click here to read more »

NEWS FLASH:
The below assessment of JetBlue in our Brand Garage was written before the weather cancellations and bad press crippled the airline a while back. JetBlue responded, however, in a very un-corporate fashion: With self deprecating honesty and truth and refunds. Few other airlines have done this in the face of weather-related problems. Few other industries have done it.

But JetBlue woefully prepared to deal with those weather issues.

In light of a $22 million first quarter loss, CEO and founder, David Neeleman has been tossed as CEO by the board and replaced by president David Barger. Click here to read more »

Today’s Brand Garage is not a fix-up job; we’ve pulled this one into Bay No. 4 over there just to admire the chassis of this well-oiled marketing machine: Vineyard Vines tie company. First, let’s say one thing about Vineyard Vines: They’re comfortable. They’re like an old friend. Their website feels like communication from people you know well and want to hang out with. It’s like family. This emotional intimacy with customers is their glue.

Not only do they talk about their new products and new stores and business stuff, they talk about fishing trips and the company hockey team and how much money four of their people raised by walking to fight breast cancer. Their casual pictures look like photos you might have on your refrigerator. Their verbal style is like a neighbor coming by to tell you about a great recipe. They have a niche and fill it windowsill to wall socket. Click here to read more »

Things have been so busy around our shop these days that we haven’t gotten to pull anyone into the old Brand Garage for an overhaul lately. Sure, we’re still busy, but we can’t let that hold us back. In fact, what we are going to do right here is create a brand and pack it with a challenge.

So let’s roll up our sleeves and get to some creative crankin’.

College sports are big business. Seriously big. And nothing screams ‘collegiate competition’ more than the ubiquitous team mascot, who is often a hand-me-down from ancient times when things were so different as to be unrecognizable. Yet, that is the beauty of college sports: The strange traditions, legends and legacies. And there are plenty. Auburn is the Tigers and the War Eagles. Virginia Tech is the Hokies, a nebulous bird of dubious heritage and no small amount of confusion even to the Hokies themselves. Click here to read more »

Jan 2009 Update
NOTE:  Since this Brand Garage was written about two years ago, Circuit City has fallen to the ranks of the bankrupt. As of this writing, they are liquidating their stores and approximately 34,000 people will be unemployed. Clearly, Circuit City is not alone in the recent downfall of retailers. 2009 shows little promise for companies that were already struggling even when the economy was good. This quote from one story about the Circuit City closing is telling and a compass for future companies whether the economy is good or bad:

“Shareholders are likely to receive nothing, as is typical in bankruptcy cases. It was unclear what would happen to the company’s 765 retail stores and dealer outlets in Canada.

“Very, very sad,” said Alan L. Wurtzel, the son of company founder Samuel S. Wurtzel, and the chief executive from 1972 to 1986, board chairman from 1986 to 1994 and vice chairman until 2001. “I feel particularly badly for the people are employed or until recently were employed.”

Wurtzel has previously said Circuit City didn’t take the threat of rival Best Buy Co. seriously enough and, at some points, were too focused on making a profit in the short term instead of building long-term value.”

2007 Update
Last year we had Circuit City in the garage, and talked about how Best Buy was basically cleaning up sales in the category while Circuit City languished. Looks like things have changed for the better for the Big Red Ballers. First, they made quite a few substantial changes: A new president, fresh from Best Buy; new marketing management; a new ad agency and processes jiggered to fit the market’s retail variables. They still trail Best Buy by a serious chunk of change, but same store sales have risen 4.2% from December 2005 to December 2006. By contrast, Best Buy’s same store sales rose 7%. The BB’s are still king. Click here to read more »