Sunday, April 29, 2012

Igloo aims for coolness in coolers

Company executives say aggressive innovation in hard- and soft-sided products has boosted sales by upward of 40 percent since 2008, including a 100 percent jump internationally. Igloo was founded on the prairie west of Houston in 1947 and began manufacturing metal water cans for oil field hands and other outdoor workers. Over the following decades, Igloo would become one of those companies, like Kleenex and Xerox, whose name is synonymous with its product. Besides being a powerful brand, it made something that just about everybody purchases at some point. Soon, Igloo's familiar red-and-white and blue-and-white chests were available in myriad colors and designs; a model emblazoned with a U.S. flag became a best-seller. Paul Busch, a veteran marketing professor at Texas A&M University, said that kind of thoughtful product development is challenging - "Innovation is very difficult," he said - but critical to meeting the demands of retailers and consumers. By expanding styles and sizes and adding colors and designs, it boosted soft-sided sales by 150 percent - and not just in lunch bags for the back-to-school set. [...] the new Duo totes and insulated bags, some made of canvas with leather accents, are designed for fashion-conscious women to sling over their shoulders en route to the gym, the beach or the grocery store. Though it accounts for just 5 percent of sales, Yeti enjoys a cultlike status with its line of "bear-resistant" ice chests made with the same rotational-molding technology used in the manufacture of white-water kayaks. Igloo introduced its Yukon Cold Locker line last October at the Outdoor Retailers Show in Salt Lake City, and the coolers began arriving on shelves at such outlets as Academy Sports + Outdoors and Bass Pro Shops earlier this year.

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