New Conti taglines take ‘smart' route

PUNTA CANA, Dominican Republic — What does Continental Tires mean to you?

That's the million-dollar question that an agency set out to answer more than 18 months ago. Representatives talked with dealers, distributors, internal stakeholders, sales, marketing — everyone touched by the world's No. 4 tire maker, according to global sales — and blended the responses together in order to determine the tagline that best summarizes the company for the next decade to come.

The result — Continental: The Smart Choice in Tires.

"The overarching thing was confidence, but we didn't want to come out and just say 'confidence,' " Travis Roffler, Continental Tire the Americas director of marketing, said during a break at the recent Gold Trip, held Aug. 8-12 in Punta Cana.

This year, around 315 dealers qualified for the 16th Gold Trip, awarded to dealers who reach certain incentives.

Roffler said studies show that 86% of consumers do some sort of research before purchasing a set of tires, which can represent an investment of $1,000 or more.

Some questions consumer might ask include: How many engineers were involved in making the tires? Were they tested on multiple terrains? In various conditions? How did they perform?

Does the company have confidence in the product?

Roffler pointed out that Conti just added trip insurance to its Total Confidence package, which also includes a 60-day buy-back guarantee.

"The smarter choice in tires makes the consumer say, 'If I don't choose Continental, then I'm not making the smart choice,'" Roffler said.

Conti tires, he told dealers, offer "a combination of exceptional performance, as good as any Tier 1 brand, at a price that is a value proposition for the consumer, and all of the program highlights that make this smart choice, not only from the consumer standpoint, but also from a dealer standpoint and distributor standpoint."

Conti's General Tire brand, too, is rolling out a new tagline: General Tire deLIVErs (with the emphasis on live).

Both campaigns will be rolled out in digital advertising, social media, point-of-sale banners and on the Conti website.

Roffler also pointed out other marketing highlights for the Conti and General brands, including:

• Supplying tires for the new Toyota Gazoo Racing Cup, a 14-race circuit that will kick off in seven venues in 2023;
• Conti's 15-year sponsorship of Major League Soccer, which will grow to 29 teams next year;
• The continuing sponsorship of college basketball games and tournaments, including the Big Ten and Big East Conference tournaments in March 2023; and
• General's continual involvement as the official tire of Major League Fishing circuit.

Roffler joined Bill Caldwell, Conti's senior vice president of sales and marketing for the Rock Hill, S.C.-based U.S. subsidiary of Germany's Continental A.G., and Chris Charity, vice president of sales, to discuss a variety of industry- and company-related topics with Tire Business.

Here are the highlights:

Conti recently signed an agreement to be the exclusive tire of the Universal Technical Institute, a provider of technical training for those seeking entry-level careers as technicians in the automotive industry. In addition, Conti will provide tires and curriculum aids to each of UTI's 15 locations across the U.S.

Charity said the collaboration with UTI is one example of how the tire maker listens —and reacts — to dealer concerns. A shortage of technicians is among the most difficult challenge facing many tire dealers.

"As we start integrating there, we'll be kind of showing their students what Continental is about," Charity said, "and then having these students go out and work in these dealerships and retail locations across the country, already knowing the product."

He said Conti will try to hook up dealers seeking technicians with UTI graduates, where and when it makes sense.

"We're trying to find the synergies and add value," Charity said.

"There's a serious shortage of these guys, and (dealers) are feeling the pain of not having techs. We've all experienced it."

"It's good for the customers," Roffler said. "These kids will be branded Conti and know Conti."

During the 2021 Gold Trip, Caldwell said the tire maker was considering capacity expansions at its North American plants — the capacity to mix more rubber that in turn will be used to manufacture larger tires. The goal, he said, was to process more rubber, especially in a market trending toward larger rim-diameter tires.

He said Conti continues to work toward this goal, especially from a capacity standpoint.

"We've become much more planning-tuned to understand that trend (of larger rim-diameter tires) and get ahead of it versus chasing behind it a little bit," Caldwell said. "... (We're doing) bites and investments to move in that direction, to better prepare capacity for the mix of products that we see in the market today."

The first phase of the expansion at the North American headquarters in Rock Hill should be finished by year-end. Employees currently scattered in different buildings across the city eventually will move to one facility as the second phase begins.

Caldwell said Conti is "chasing it still," but is catching up to market demand.

"Things are improving," he said. "Our back orders are coming down. Step by step, out of COVID, out of all the challenging staffing dynamics, things are starting to stabilize a little bit, but there is still some work to do there. When you hire someone into a plant for example, it takes some time for him to get up to speed, that doesn't happen immediately when they're in the door, so I think there's good progress being made there, but there still is progress to make."

He called Conti's European plants "a saving grace" for helping to maintain North American supply.

"We've been able to lean on (those plants) heavier, even since September, to try to help supplement our supply in the market," Caldwell said. "That's continued. It's a little tougher and a little more expensive to get a container from Europe these days, but we've got a real increase in flow of products coming from Europe to try to subsidize our local production to keep our dealers fed."

Meanwhile, he said, the upheaval at Conti's passenger tire plant in Kaluga, Russia — brought about by Russia's invasion of Ukraine — has had no effect on North America supply. In April, Conti restarted production in Russia in an effort to keep local workers safe and avoid criminal penalties if it fails to meet local demand.

However, Caldwell said the company has done a lot of internal work in order to re-source or find alternative supply for raw materials in order to maintain production levels.

"By all assessments, I think the team has done a fantastic job because it's been relatively seamless for us on the sales side to recognize a real slowdown there," he said.

While other tire makers tout their EV tire technology, the Conti execs want customers to know that most every Conti tire satisfies EVs. It just depends, they say, on what an EV owner prefers: A tire with better range or one that offers better performance.

"There's a couple of manufacturers that make EV lines," Roffler said, pointing out that seven EV manufacturers have selected Conti as OE on their vehicles. "We don't need EV lines. We're going to continue to make statements that's every Continental tire we have out is perfectly fine and well-suited to perform well, based upon certain criteria."

Roffler pointed out that EVs don't require unique sizes. "The quality should be there, no matter the vehicle type."

"The bottom line," Charity said, "is that consumers are looking for the tire that makes sense for them."

How does a manufacturer navigate the changing industries, changing landscape, driven by the uptick in mergers and acquisitions?

The executives said they believe M&A is an opportunity to help the new ownership grow the business while forging a strong partnership.

"Where we spend a lot of our time focused is creating value, bringing the right products," Charity said. "We have a very consistent team. ... Customers know what to expect when they work with our team. So we bring a lot of these things to the table and with these strong partnerships, we have to figure out how we add value."

Caldwell said a merger/acquisition provides a chance for both entities to reassess strategies and decide whom they want to continue to do business with.

"That's where we see opportunity — being a coming, growing smaller player versus some of the bigs (tire makers) — we want to be in the right place with the right package and the right offer to be considered when someone is evaluating that.

"We try to make sure we're in a position for that decision-making window that might come up when these big changes happen."

The Conti execs, who have been together for several years, tout the team's consistency in all that it does.

"We succeed when we add value," Caldwell said. "That's what we focus on. How do we add value? How can we differentiate ourselves from other options that the dealer has? Let's make sure we're compelling there. Let's not stop. That's the theme for years now to make sure we're really focused in that area, because we feel like if we get really focused in that area, we get rewarded by the dealers."

Roffler said the team not only has been consistent in its makeup, but also in its products and sponsorships.

"We're growing, and we continue to grow, and dealers reward us for continuing down the same path," he said. "You don't have to worry about going month to month or year to year. We add small things that we believe provide value."

One such item is the Continental Gold app, a new part of the program in which Gold dealers can download the app on a tablet or smartphone in order to access important information, personalized for each dealer.

"It's just adapting and making the small things to make the program slowly better over time," Roffler said.

Caldwell encouraged any dealer not selling the Conti line to give it consideration.

"We think we have good things to offer," he said. "We aspire to be a consistent, reliable team. We really focus on that."

The 2023 Gold Trip will be held March 20-24 in Atelier Playa Mujeres, Mexico. That will put the incentive trip back to its pre-pandemic spot on the calendar.