When it comes to the Boy Racer sector, the American model differs little from his European counterpart – both want a tyre that looks good, performs well but is affordable. To cater for this, Michelin in North America has introduced the BFGoodrich g-Force Sport. It will be available in 21 sizes for wheels up to 18″, although larger wheel sizes are planned.
Michelin Americas Truck Tires and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company have announced agreements with Pilot Travel Centers LLC, the largest truck stop network in North America, to begin supply Michelin, BFGoodrich and Goodyear truck tyres at its travel centres. Pilot Travel Centers is a leading interstate retailer, operating 264 travel centres coast-to-coast. The company operates its travel centres in 38 states. Goodyear will supply a variety of truck tyres for Pilot’s store network, including the G395 LHS steer tyre. The new Pilot Truck Care Centers will also feature a full line of Michelin and BFGoodrich tyres including the Michelin X One wide single tyre line.
At the Detroit Auto Show the Michelin and Pirelli have both announced new OE contracts with Ford. Michelin will deliver the BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KDW (18 inch) and BFGoodrich all-season Traction T/A (16 inch) to equip Ford’s Mustang GT. Pirelli Tire North America will also deliver tyres for the new Mustang GT, namely the P Zero Nero. For the new Mercury Montego, the Ford Focus ST, and the Ford Freestyle Pirelli will deliver its P6 Four Season tyre into Ford’s OE.
The Micheldever wholesale operation has been rapidly growing but until 2001 had been concentrated in the South. However, the desire to replicate the wholesale success achieved in the South had led Tony to search for strategically placed wholesale premises initially in the Midlands and North of England, and when Southam Tyres came on the market in October 2001, Tony beat off competition from UK, European and Far Eastern wholesalers to acquire the Southam business. This immediately provided Micheldever with the UK’s most successful 4×4 tyre distributor and its specialist sales team, plus exclusive distribution rights to BFGoodrich 4×4, General Tire and Roadhog. However, due to virtually zero investment from its previous owners, the Southam warehouse was poorly equipped, lacking adequate storage systems and having an ageing fleet of vehicles.
The Micheldever investment came swiftly, with a new fleet, tyreracking systems and a vastly increased range of stock. The benefits of having the most comprehensive range of car and 4X4 tyres available in the Midlands quickly led to excellent sales results for the previously product starved Southam sales teams.
However, the move that really sent the message out that Micheldever had intentions to become a national player was the announcement of the new Halifax depot. A purpose built warehouse on four floors it will have a capacity for 600,000 tyres. By mid 2003 work was progressing well at Halifax, and finally in Sept 2003 the UK’s largest tyre warehouse commenced deliveries on a phased schedule.
Obviously for Micheldever the main thrust of the business at present is the development of the wholesale division and taking the offer to the trade across the UK. One of the much-vaunted drivers for offering national coverage is the potential to be developed in the franchised dealer network. The opportunity to supply tyres as first fit on fleet cars through the franchised dealers is reportedly enormous.
Tony Todd is adamant that there are two factors to being successful. The first is that you can’t sell it if you haven’t got it; the second is that you can’t do the job unless you have got the right tools and the right people in place.
During the last three years the Michelin group has made better progress on the American market than experts had expected. This progress was supported by the Firestone disaster at the end of the last decade. Additionally Michelin profited by Goodyear’s persistent bad shape. Talking to TYRES & ACCESSORIES, Jean-Michel Guillon, COO for Michelin Americas Small Tires (MAST), states unequivocally that the tyre maker does not write off or underestimate any of its competitors. But as a matter of fact Michelin’s North American business is excellent. Michelin’s three flag brands Michelin, BFGoodrich and Uniroyal are well-positioned, and every single marketing measure is aligned with other corporate marketing measures. Michelin clearly is the market leader, has the highest prices and the Michelin brand receives the best ratings from J.D. Power. The prospects for the company are promising.
In the summer of 2002 Michelin launched the Kleber KAPS promotional campaign. This was a points-based incentive scheme for the agricultural sector. Dealers received points based on the number of Kleber tyres purchased. These points could be traded as they were accumulated, for a range of services and products. The points could gain dealer overalls, training sessions, or tickets for Formula One, as they desired.
KAPS is one of several similar projects across Europe and the success with which these incentive programmes have met has led to a development of the programme to be launched in 2004.
Dave Crinson, head of agricultural tyres at Michelin’s UK office, told T&A that dealers had responded positively to the scheme and the uptake on training sessions was particularly strong along with the alignment equipment and overalls. “This is an excellent outcome especially if we can get more dealers on-board with our training schemes,” he added.
Stephane Bonnard, head of marketing for agricultural tyres, pointed out that although the KAPS programme was continuing to run and had been successful to a degree, like any of these projects it was open to restructuring. “One of the areas where we believe dealers will be interested in is if we broaden the range of products covered by the scheme. This is something reflected in other European markets too. From the outset Michelin in France had been watching the KAPS scheme very closely and they have now taken it on board and whilst we will continue to run KAPS and offer the benefits, the scheme will be relaunched in 2004 with coverage to include the three key brands. Michelin of course will be the premium brand, with Kleber as the premium/value brand and BFGoodrich as the value brand. All three brands will be offered through our direct sales team to end users and dealers. Taurus and Kormoran will continue to be sold as a value and budget brand through wholesalers and will not be included in the new scheme.
1997 marked the US-comeback for BFGoodrich Tires in the agricultural segment, where the brand had a long tradition. Now BFGoodrich Tires – well-known for off road and car tyres – is returning to the European agricultural tyre sector as the second world brand in Michelin’s multi-brand-strategy. Across the world and in the tyre segments where Michelin is well-known for attributes like “premium, innovator, top technology”, BFGoodrich Tires will be positioned in the “value for money” segment, in original equipment and the aftermarket also. Overlapping in some sub segments such as front and implement tyres with the brands Stomil/kormoran and Taurus will, in the long run, be resolved in favour of BFGoodrich.
Michelin recently took the decision to abandon OE orders from GM Europe as the company wants to concentrate on OE business in the more lucrative high performance segment. Michelin said that its North American business with GM is not affected (Michelin is GM’s second largest tyre supplier, with the Uniroyal, BFGoodrich and Michelin brands) but it now appears that GM North America does not want to consider Michelin for future OE projects.
The erstwhile Tyre manufacturer, now aerospace supplier, BF Goodrich has teamed up with Ford to develop a SmartBelt seatbelt. This is a combination of the traditional seatbelt and the airbag, which inflates to protect vehicle occupants in the event of a collision. BF Goodrich sold its tyre operations to Michelin in 1990 and the brand is still manufactured and marketed as BF Goodrich by Michelin.
In Germany, Michelin is offering, what it calls “target-dealers” a contract with a Bib-Program, meaning Better In Business. Michelin has developed a multi-brand strategy with its Michelin, Kleber and BFGoodrich brands and is offering important extras to the dealers who have to agree to give the group brands a certain portion ( the majority) of their total purchasing. As our sister magazine, NEUE REIFENZEITUNG, says: The multi-brand-strategy has arrived in Germany.
Michelin Americas Small Tires (MAST) has announced an increase in price in the US replacement market for passenger and light truck tyres. Michelin, Uniroyal and BFGoodrich brands will all rise by 5%, along with private and associate brands.
In the USA it is possible to order coloured BFGoodrich High Performance tyres via the internet.
In the US, J.D. Power and Associates conducted an OE tyre satisfaction survey among 31,000 buyers of new vehicles. Michelin came top in the car and minivan category for the third year running and won the light truck category (including pickups and SUVs) for the second consecutive time. Runners-up in the car segment were (in order) Continental, BFGoodrich and Dunlop. In the light truck category, Michelin was followed by Dunlop, BFGoodrich and Firestone. The survey took place before the Firestone tyre recall.
Recently BFGoodrich had chosen Dubai (United Arab Emirates) as the venue for the introduction of the latest 4×4 BFGoodrich tyre. The new tyre is the “All Terrain T/A” for mixed application on and off the road, a new/further development of its predecessor, “Radial All Terrain T/A” which will now be completely replaced by the new model in all sizes, with some more sizes added. This demonstrates the importance BFGoodrich attaches to the “All Terrain” tyres, a regularly updated line, which has sold well for more than 20 years. “The ‚All Terrain T/A‘, along with ‚Mud Terrain T/A‘ and ‚Long Trail T/A‘ are some of our most popular 4×4 models”, explained Matthias Utzinger, Kléber’s off-road product manager. The new “T/A” will be the most generally useful tyre in the product range, conceived for mixed applications, i.e. for light off-road work but also for the road and for drivers keen on sporty driving, without ever losing sight of its use as a “work-horse”. The forecast for Germany is approximately 100,000 new registrations for off-road cars in 1999, meaning more than 750,000 vehicles of that kind on the road in 2000, according to the tyre manufacturer’s market data, with 4×4 tyre replacement sales amounting to about 700,000. Thus the revised/new “All Terrain T/A” may well lead to BFGoodrich getting a larger slice of the cake.
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