Brand Strategy Gels for CNH

CNH Global has certainly started the year hot. Three years after forming a worldwide construction-equipment company featuring the brands of Case Construction Equipment and New Holland Construction, CNH Global has announced product line expansions within both brands and entered into an alliance with

For equipment users, the gelling of CNH's strategy should mean more machine options, stronger dealerships and relationships, greater opportunities for product support, and more financial options for insurance and equipment financing. CNH has spent the past three years, it seems, pulling the pieces together and building a company that is ready to deliver on its promise to wield global power behind strong local brands.

In an exclusive Construction Equipment interview prior to this month's Conexpo-Con/Agg 2002, Jim McCullough, senior vice president, construction equipment for CNH Global, said the multibrand strategy "fosters brand loyalties and continues to offer machines with different features and styling.

"Case and New Holland have loyal followers," McCullough said. "Both have unique attributes. Both have well-established dealer networks. And both are in a position to benefit from the shared strength of CNH Global through manufacturing synergies, research and product development.

"We are able to offer more best-in-class technologies more quickly, while continuing to manufacture products differentiated by look, feel and features associated with respective brands. Commonality of basic components reduces the cost of ownership and increases efficiency and productivity."

Case- and New Holland-branded equipment will share many common features within product lines, yet they will be differentiated according to customer needs. Manufacturing plants are able to produce both brands of a particular type of machine, incorporating those differences when necessary. One company official told us that the higher the production volume, the more differentiation between brands. Articulated trucks, for example, will share more in common than will backhoe-loaders.

The industry will be watching CNH this year, both equipment users and equipment manufacturers. If CNH can leverage its global punch to strengthen its two—now three—brands, and if its various dealer networks are able to sell and support these broader brand offerings, we're going to see stronger competition and continued machine differentiation. For equipment users, there couldn't be much better news than that.