Kwikset Locks

THE CHALLENGE

Transforming a Brand's Perception and Messaging

What do you do when your company's branding and product messaging don't clearly communicate the benefits that your products actually deliver? That's the challenge that Kwikset faced as they contemplated a major website revamp. While customers associated Kwikset with quality door locks and hardware, they were not as familiar with the many innovative features available on Kwikset products. For example, the breakthrough Kwikset Smartkey technology, which allows customers to quickly and easily re-key their own locks, had low awareness among customers. To ensure their brand message of innovation and quality was communicated to the target customer base, Kwikset sought a major rebranding effort both for their website as well as other offline advertising.

Kwikset was also challenged to meet the needs of its two sets' of customers - retail customers and trade professionals - each with a unique set of information requirements. During the website revamp, Kwikset wanted to ensure they provided both customer segments with easy to locate and navigate sections customized for the specific product and service information needed.

THE SOLUTION

	Working Closely with Kwikset to Develop a Creative and Branding Strategy that Communicates Innovation To achieve Kwikset's objective of clearly positioning their brand as innovative, we needed to work in a very interactive manner with their marketing team, iterating on multiple cycles of creative approaches. We spent many hours discussing branding strategy with their marketing team as well as delving into the marketing research that had been conducted to truly understand the direction that Kwikset wanted to take their branding and communication. Due to this high level of interaction, we were then able to translate their desired brand intangibles - innovation and quality - into a look and feel that captured the essence Kwikset desired.
	Enabling Quick and Easy Product Search for both Retail Customers and Trade Professionals Retail customers and trade professionals represent equally important customer segments for Kwikset, however, each has different needs and priorities when they visit the Kwikset website. With that fact in mind, we developed product sections tailored to the unique needs of each segment. For retail customers who want a fast way to find the product that best meets their needs, we developed an innovative drop down visual menu system. This system allows retail customers to quickly identify the product category they're interested in, and then with a minimum of effort, find the specific product they need. Trade professionals, who are typically more knowledgeable about door locks and handles, can use a sophisticated search engine based on Dynamic Filtering Technology to identify the products they're interested in. This technology allows these professionals to select a number of product attributes to quickly narrow down the set of products that meet their search criteria.
	Partnering with Kwikset's IT team to Implement a Common Architectural Web Platform Kwikset is part of the Stanley Black & Decker - Hardware and Home Improvement Group family of brands that also includes names such as Baldwin, Pfister, Weiser Lock, K2 Commercial Hardware and others. The IT infrastructure for these brands, including website development, is managed centrally to ensure maximum resource efficiency. The corporation had moved to a common architectural platform for all their brands' web development efforts, and looked to us to be able to develop to this platform's robust enterprise requirements. The architectural platform consisted of three key components: the Sitefinity CMS, the Adobe Scene 7 asset library, and the Mediachase ECF e-commerce framework.