The Gold Eagle Brand

Marc Blackman on The Gold Eagle Brand

I’ve heard it said that Gold Eagle Company is a house of brands, not a branded house. I believe we are both.

Although we’re best known for iconic American brands including STA-BIL, HEET, 303 Products and most recently TriNova, we do have a Gold Eagle brand, but most folks don’t know this.  I’d like that to change.

We have our Core Values, Mission and Purpose, which is great.  But what is our brand?

What is a brand?

According to author and marketing Guru Seth Godin:

“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another…The brand is a story. But it’s a story about you, not about the brand.

“Yes, every brand has a story—that’s how it goes from being a logo and a name to a brand. The story includes expectations and history and promises and social cues and emotions. The story makes us say we “love Google” or “love Harley”… but what do we really love?

“We love ourselves.

“We love the memory we have of how that brand made us feel once. We love that it reminds us of our mom, or growing up, or our first kiss. We support a charity or a soccer team or a perfume because it gives us a chance to love something about ourselves.

“We can’t easily explain this, even to ourselves. We can’t easily acknowledge the narcissism and the nostalgia that drives so many of the apparently rational decisions we make every day. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not at work.

“More than ever, we express ourselves with what we buy and how we use what we buy. Extensions of our personality, totems of our selves, reminders of who we are or would like to be.

“Great marketers don’t make stuff. They make meaning.”

Gold Eagle Co. makes meaning.  We provide good manufacturing jobs, support our local industry base, and proudly wave the “Made In America banner.”  We have team members who have been with us for 20, 30 and 40 years, many from the same family.  We provide meaning in people’s lives.

We have integrated manufacturing, R&D, quality control, operations, distribution, human resources, finance, sales and marketing within one facility in Chicago. This is fairly unique in today’s business climate. As a privately held packager of consumer products, we remain independent and fiercely loyal to our team members and customers. We support worthy causes and give back to our community. We enjoy working with and for each other and we like to have fun.

We strive for balance in the lives of our team members while working hard every day to delight our customers. We carefully create a culture of continues improvement, honest commentary and empowerment.

These are the pillars of success achieved during our first 85 years in business.  This is the foundation for our Gold Eagle brand.

Please join me here at the new www.goldeagle.com as we tell our Gold Eagle brand story, and as we continue to evolve, change and grow.