Building the STI Brand

For several months now, we have been having internal discussions about how we can more clearly define and share the Service Trucks International brand. On one hand, that task seems straightforward and fairly simple. After all, we’ve been building truck bodies for 39 years. In that time, we’ve grown steadily; added product lines; and made good penetration into the service equipment market. We’re not anticipating a major change in our business, and we’re not even looking to change our company logo. So, what’s the problem? We should have a pretty clear idea of what our brand is, right?

On the other hand, creating a brand that conveys the true character of the company and positions us well against the competition is a challenge – and it’s one that a lot of organizations face. How can we articulate a brand that is authentic and distinctive, but is also relevant and resonates with our different audiences?

Through the years, STI has used a few different taglines that have tried to capture the uniqueness of our products. All of them spoke to some unique aspect of our products or the manufacturing process. However, as a manufacturer, we have probably been too quick to think of our parent brand as synonymous only with our products. Don’t get me wrong, I think we make some of the best bodies on the market – customer feedback and the average service life of our bodies would support that. But in terms of what makes STI distinctive, the “What” may be less important than the “Why.”

Building with Integrity

This spring, we’ve been running an ad campaign around the theme We Build Confidence. We want to show our deep roots as manufacturers (We Build…), but to also emphasize that the STI brand isn’t really about steel boxes. It’s a belief that doing things the right way matters. It’s in the choice to engineer our products for strength, reliability, and safety. (Few competitors have compartment pressurization or sealed crane turrets, and none have sequential boom numbering.) It’s in the way we select materials that hold up to abuse and time – our goal is to build a 15+ year body. And it’s in the way we guarantee our products with a stronger warranty than almost anyone in the industry. To build confidence, we build for durability; we build for longevity; we build for safety; and we build with integrity.

That ad campaign may come and go, and that theme isn’t our official tagline, but the underlying belief is the foundation for all we do. It carries through to the Tiger Cranes product brand and how we serve its new opportunities, like the marine market; or facility expansion that provides more capacity, better workflow, and improved work environment. Even more importantly, it serves as a compass for how STI connects with our most valuable audience – our employees. “Doing things the right way” means empowering each employee to have a voice in the process of continual improvement (and acknowledging that input!)

An Ongoing Process

As we move into the future, and continue to grow and expand into new markets, defining our uniqueness, and being able to clearly articulate it to all our audiences, will become even more crucial to the success of STI. But whether it’s through design choices, customer support, or employee relations, the commitment to our principles will be unwavering. Maybe we will even decide on a new tagline.