Swiss Army Knife Now Shares Space on Shelf : Marketing: The U.S. distributor of the famed product expands to watches and sunglasses, betting on its name.
The company that brought the all-purpose Swiss Army pocketknife to America is now offering products that do more than open wine bottles, strip wire or gut fish.
Forschner Group Inc., the U.S. distributor of the multiblade red knives with silver crosses, has expanded into the sunglass and watch business with its new subsidiary, Swiss Army Brands Ltd.
The company is banking on consumers’ familiarity with the Swiss Army name to get these products off the ground.
“There is a high-quality imagery associated with the knife,” said Forschner President James Kennedy. “It has always been known as a useful, utilitarian product and we were able to transfer that to the watch’s image.”
Sales of the Swiss Army Brand watch have totaled around $4 million since its debut last fall, double the projections, said Kennedy.
The simple watch with a large face, big numbers and black strap was designed in the United States and manufactured in Switzerland. It sells for $95 retail.
The Swiss Army Brand aviator-style sunglasses were introduced in April and sell for around $115 retail. But sales have been disappointing thus far, totaling just $385,000 in the first nine months of this year. Kennedy said the glasses came out too late to be included in many retailers’ summer catalogues.
The new products are targeted at upscale, outdoorsy types who frequent camping and hunting stores. The company does minimal advertising and its products are sold by exclusive retailers such as Hoffritz for Cutlery, Eddie Bauer and Hammacher Schlemmer.
The Swiss-based Victorinox Cutlery Co., founded in 1884 by Karl Elsener, developed the original Swiss Army knife in 1891. Its patent on the pocketknife expired in 1908, and since then, many imitations have surfaced.
About half the soldiers in the Swiss Army carry Victorinox knives. The rest are manufactured by their rival, Wenger, which also sells Swiss Army knives in the United States through retailers such as K Mart and L. L. Bean.
Victorinox makes 295 different models of the knife, but Forschner sells only about 50 in the United States.
The Scientist model features a magnifying glass, while the Tinker contains two can openers and a Phillips screwdriver. A saw, pliers, scissors and a file are part of the Craftsman.
Forschner became a distributor for the pocketknives shortly after World War II. The company started out 135 years ago in New Britain selling only butcher scales. In the 1930s, it added Victorinox butcher knives to its line.
The butcher knives, sold almost exclusively to slaughterhouses and restaurants, accounted for 27% of Forschner’s business last year. Another 23% came from Swiss Army knives printed with corporate logos. The other half came from the pocketknives.
When Kennedy came to work at the company in 1975, it decided to stop selling butcher scales and to halt sales of the pocketknives to its 40 wholesalers. Forschner began selling the pocketknives directly to specialty retail stores.
Imitation knives have plagued Forschner for years, but when knockoffs of the watches started showing up in stores for $20 to $25, the company took immediate action against some Asian manufacturers for violating trade laws.
Since the knockoffs were not manufactured in Switzerland, the companies making them were not allowed to call them Swiss-style or Swiss-like and were prohibited from using the trademark Swiss Cross.
Such restrictions also have limited Forschner’s growth.
“We have to have all our products made in Switzerland, where the factories are small, inefficient and expensive,” Kennedy said. He added that the strength of the Swiss franc has added to his purchase price.
Nonetheless, in the past 16 years, Forschner’s profits have grown 4,000%. Last year, Forschner sold $33 million worth of knives, up from less than $1 million in 1974.
