Bruce Johnston, Brand Manager, WIX Filters

GASTONIA, NC —

Every other week, aftermarketNews offers an interview with high-profile individuals in the automotive aftermarket. We give executives free reign to express their views on anything from the state of their corporations to recent legislative news to future trends in their niche markets. Here you see what matters to the newsmakers themselves.

This week, we hear from Bruce Johnston, brand manager for WIX Filters. As brand manager, Johnston is responsible for the marketing discipline for WIX branded filter business — a position that calls for developing television, radio, public relations, motorsports and trade advertising campaigns to successfully execute WIX’s marketing plan.

During his 24-year career with Wix Filtration, Johnston has served in a variety of roles. He joined Wix Filtration in 1982 as a district sales manager for NAPA brand filters. He moved on to become assistant brand manager for NAPA brand filters in 1989. The next year, Johnston accepted a position as brand manager for Big A brand filters until his September 1993 promotion to his present title. In 2001, Johnston was also named motorsports manager for the Dana Underhood Group.

Johnston earned a bachelor of arts degree in business administration in 1981 from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.

Join us as we talk with Johnston about branding strategy, motorsports marketing and other keys to the success and longevity of the WIX brand.

Let’s begin by talking about branding. WIX is a well-known brand name with a long history. How do you keep the branding fresh for a company that has been around since 1939?

Last year, we re-energized the WIX brand with an aggressive new sales and marketing campaign that featured the first packaging change in a decade. The bold look of the new black filters was highlighted in our advertising and POP materials, and the dramatic look of our new packaging was reflected in an edgy campaign. For 2006, we’ve taken that a step further. We’ve expanded our efforts to include a vibrant, in-your-face campaign for the HD market. It’s simply a case of our messaging being brought in line with the product attributes that WIX customers have known about for almost seven decades. It’s reinforcing the WIX promise of quality and innovation with some bold imagery and a little bit of humor, too.

Branding is crucial when it comes to differentiating your company from a competitor. What is WIX’s key differentiator? What have customers come to know and expect as synonymous with the WIX name?

A few things: quality, performance and superior application coverage. Customers trust WIX filters to protect their vehicles – in some cases, their livelihoods – and we are dedicated to providing them with the absolute best filter in the market. In addition, WIX is consistently first to market with new applications, and we provide a wide range of product. Customers know that if they need it, WIX has it. In the end, though, it all comes down to quality, whether it’s quality of product or quality of service. At WIX, quality is a concept that we embrace across the board, from our engineering expertise to the enhanced media in the filters themselves. At our WIX manufacturing facilities, every employee is authorized to stop the line if he or she sees something that does not meet WIX standards. Quality is something that everyone at WIX takes very seriously.

WIX last year became part of Affinia, the new company formed from the remains of Dana AAG, which was divested from Dana Corp. in December of 2004. What has the process been like to integrate such a well-established brand (WIX) into the framework of a newly created company (Affinia)? Do you find that you are having to market on two different levels (as WIX, as well as being part of Affinia) or is there a natural overlap or synergy between the two?

WIX’s integration into the newly formed Affinia Group has been very smooth. Affinia may be a new entity, but its constituents and leadership are aftermarket veterans. And as you mentioned, there are natural synergies that exist, both between WIX and Affinia and between WIX and other Affinia brands, such as Raybestos and Spicer. Our goal is to maximize those collaborative opportunities and integrate WIX into Affinia’s family of aftermarket brands while maintaining WIX’s individual identity. It can be done. We’ve already begun working closely with other Affinia brands with joint promotional efforts like the Affinia Motorsports Promotion. With Raybestos, in particular, there are a lot of opportunities we have yet to explore. We also all work with the same advertising and public relations agency, which assures synergies in our communications efforts.

WIX does a great job keeping its customers happy and involved with numerous promotions throughout the year. Why are promotions important/valuable to WIX? And, what’s the process for coming up with fresh ideas and unique customer rewards?

We put a lot of effort into creating marketing and sales promotions that are effective, user-friendly and fun. We draw on feedback from our sales force and channel partners to develop a collection of diverse promotions that provide an outreach to varied audiences, ranging from fleet operations and the FFA to race fans. In recent years, we’ve added some really innovative promotions and incentives, including the WIX Hummer H2 mobile marketing program and the Route WIX line of die cast collectibles, which this year will include a NASCAR-licensed Richard Petty race car. The H2 has gone over so well that we actually have customers advertising the WIX Hummer and its participation at their events. It’s when we see things like that that we know we’ve really made an impact in differentiating ourselves from the competition and that we’re meeting – and hopefully, exceeding – our channel partners’ needs.

At AAPEX this year, WIX unveiled a new brand tagline, “WIX. Where it Counts.” As I understand it, this is the first brand tagline for the company in 66 years. Why was the time right for a motto and what was the impetus for this particular phrase?

We wanted to come up with a tagline that encompassed what the brand is all about and took into account WIX’s 66-year history as a trusted leader in the design and production of premium filtration products. It was important that the tagline highlight the essential nature of WIX filters – that they serve as true performance partners in the operation and maintenance of your vehicle, whether your vehicle is a front-end loader, a big rig or a Ford pick-up. We decided on “WIX. Where It Counts.” because we think it speaks volumes about everything we do and our position in the marketplace. From consumers who trust WIX products to protect one of their most valuable investments, to our channel partners, who count on WIX quality and support to help them provide the best service to their customers, to NASCAR drivers, who rely on WIX filters to give them that competitive edge on the racetrack, these individuals are putting WIX where it counts. The tagline emerged as a natural extension of that fact.

How will you be using this new tagline?

Initially, we planned to feature the “WIX. Where It Counts.” tagline only on our heavy-duty product line. We saw it as a great fit for HD and the demands placed on those products. It also dovetailed well with our enhanced focus on HD brand support, which includes elements like a dedicated HD Web site, www.wixtreme.com , an HD newsletter and engineering innovations like our embossing pleater technology. However, once we began developing the concept, we felt that the tagline did such a great job of concisely capturing the essence of the WIX brand that it evolved from an HD focus to include light-duty and eventually encompass our entire lineup of product offerings.

The tagline will appear in all of our sales and marketing materials for 2006, including point-of-sale collateral, LD and HD trade print ads, and radio spots. It also will tie in with our sponsorship of the WIX Filters Lap Leader Award program in NASCAR.

Let’s talk about WIX’s involvement in motorsports for a moment. WIX has been involved with NASCAR for nearly 40 years. What are some of the different ways the company utilizes racing as a marketing tool and what’s the payoff?

For WIX, our involvement with NASCAR means more than just giving out a few race tickets and checkered-flag caps. First and foremost, we’re involved with NASCAR – and have been for almost four decades – because the racetrack is one of the most punishing environments that any filter can experience, and it serves as an effective R&D facility for our engineers. WIX’s partnerships with leading NASCAR teams allow us to work hand-in-hand with team engineers and drivers to develop product components that are used not only by race teams but also in light- and heavy-duty filtration products for consumers.

As for our motorsports marketing efforts, we will continue to develop and grow our relationships with race teams because our success in the ultra-competitive world of NASCAR is one of the best ways to showcase WIX filters’ superior performance. WIX has earned the designation “#1 filter in NASCAR” and is an exclusive NASCAR Performance Product, with almost 100 percent of race teams using WIX filters. We’ve also partnered with key players in the NASCAR arena – respected leaders such as Joe Gibbs Racing and other top teams – through associate and product sponsorships, as well as our sponsorship of the WIX Filters Lap Leader Award program. We were particularly proud this year when two of the three champions in NASCAR’s elite series also earned the WIX Filters Lap Leader title, because it reinforced our contention that WIX filters are an essential component of optimum performance. Once again, it’s the idea of reaping the benefits of putting WIX “where it counts.”

It’s no secret that NASCAR fans are extremely brand loyal, and our involvement with motorsports is obviously designed to capitalize on that fact. And since our customers, jobbers and technicians are NASCAR fans, we provide our channel partners with motorsports-related promotions – like the WIX “Party Like a Rock Star” sweepstakes, the Affinia Motorsports Promotion and the WIX Filters Lap Leader Award online contest – that tie in to the WIX brand they trust.

WIX was the recipient of a number of awards in 2005 – including the 2005 Supplier of the Year Award from Aftermarket Auto Parts Alliance and two vendor awards from Parts Depot – recognizing the company for customer service excellence. What is the company’s philosophy on customer service, and how do you maintain such a high level of customer satisfaction?

At WIX, we truly believe that customer service and sales support are key components of our continued success. That means providing our customers with the best filtration products, on-time shipping with a fill rate of over 95 percent and innovative marketing and sales support. But it doesn’t stop there. It means being first to market with new technology and providing solutions to problems that other manufacturers are not addressing. It also means offering unique educational and technical support programs, ranging from an 800 number for tech support to advanced training at the WIX Institute of Filtration Technology, which is now entering its 12th year. Everyone at WIX is very proud of the awards we’ve received for customer service excellence because they come from our partners in the industry, and it’s only when they tell us that we’re doing a good job that we believe our customer service efforts are effective.

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