We arranged an interview with STIHL President, Fred Whyte who pointed out the reasons for STIHL’s stance on distribution, which turned into an entire chapter in Dr. Thomas’ book “The Distribution Trap: Keeping Your Innovations From Becoming Commodities” (now available through Amazon.com and other online sources).
Recently Dr. Thomas visited company headquarters in Virginia Beach and spoke to STIHL employees about how the company remained successful by keeping their distribution process in house and avoiding the trap.
Posted by: Terry Kelley, VP of PR and Corporate Communications, Meridian Group
When you have a recognizable brand like STIHL – recently named one of America’s Greatest – people want to know how it was created. Ken Waldron, national marketing manager for STIHL Inc., shares his insight in Advertising Age’s latest CMO Strategy column:
Part of our work with STIHL includes making them the best known brand of chain saw in the country, not just the best quality. We’re one step closer to total U.S. domination with this hit in Esquire Magazine, engineered by our PR department.
Esquire’s Digital Man writer Barry Sonnenfeld (the name might ring a bell – he’s the director of Men In Black) loves the STIHL MS 211 C-BE chain saw because it’s environmentally responsible, lightweight, easy to start, and manly. You should too.
Meridian Group‘s STIHL team was approached in November of 2008 by Dr. Andrew Thomas , who saw the full page ad we produced in the Wall Street Journal asking, “Why is the number one selling brand of chainsaw not sold at Lowe’s or The Home Depot?”
Part of our work with 
