As Director of Sales and Marketing for a manufacturer out of China, my ROADTEK journey was a global jam-packed go to market adventure.  The US arm of operations was a startup, and our small team wore many hats.  Tasked with development and rollout of an innovative line of floor jack products from a working concept, I prepared for our industry and consumer launch at Specialty Equipment Market Association Show in Las Vegas.  SEMA is the show for automobile manufacturers.  With 9 months until the show, I delivered and executed a go to market strategy for both DTC and B2B:

• Brand ID
• Product Packaging & Colorways
• Digital & Print Asset Creation
• Show / Event Concept & Delivery
• Big Box / Wholesale / Retail Strategy & Execution
• Partnerships
• Development / Management Customer Service
• Operation SOPs / Stack Selection & Integrations
• Ecommerce
• Social

Brand Transformation

Product

While product retooling was in process, I was working on the product line, visual, and user experience.  Through market research and market forecasting exercises, I added 6 new SKUs.   The visual experience for the products including stickers, decals, safety, colorways, and manuals were all completed in 3 languages English, French, and Spanish.  The stickers were designed to ensure a consistent brand experience throughout and to differentiate the product levels from each other and convey variants like material, wheel set, and capacity. Additionally, I designed comparison graphics showing stats and features by product and compared in a master chart for the jacks and jack stands.  Below are a few of these.  Used in social, ecommerce, and media.

Packaging

Packaging was developed with 2 color ways – GarageMax: orange/black/grey and ShopMax:blue/black/grey.  As there were steel and aluminum product options the packaging needed to reflect the differences easily while allowing visual representation of the full line.  This brand and technology were new to market so there were many things to convey and capture.

Our competitors had set the bar low with their packaging.  I designed the following to set ROADTEK above:

• Folding “R”:  Branding for ROADTEK but also consistent look and feel
• Icon Set:  For clear product specs
• Unique Backgrounds: To differentiate between lines/materials
• Max Power Battery: To convey the powered nature of the product
• Nerdy Science Icons: Decluttering important features for clarity between lines – also used to add a “high tech” feel
• Premium Rich Colors:  Matching branding and experience
• Luscious Renders:  On point product lighting and colors

For pizazz, I added POV images on the top and bottom of the jack stand packages.  They were designed to give the effect of looking at the product inside the box from top or below. In addition to the product packaging, there were also unique shipping cartons for each SKU as well as logo shipping tape.  Given the heavy and large shipping dimensions for these products, we completed shipping tests through the 5 FedEx Zones from our 3PL to ensure beautiful product arrived intact for consumers.  Once the packaging was set, I flew to China to ensure quality standards and provide final approvals.

Consumer packaging feedback was positive, it was clear they resonated with feeling considered in the process.  The biggest honor was at SEMA 2024, when a major competitor design team who had heard of our innovations came to photograph them.