Many of you older readers remember Brother from their typewriter days. In fact, I bet a large number of dealers reading this probably started as Brother typewriter resellers. On January 19, Brother held their first analyst event for my colleagues and me since I can remember. It was a statement “coming out” event for one of the world’s largest printer manufacturers held at the swanky Ink48. For years, Brother has quietly flown under my radar by marketing their products through retail and alternative channels. Those days are over.
Brother is officially back in our channel and they’re looking for dealers. I knew this before the event as I watched them assemble a marketing crew consisting of traditional copier industry veterans. Steven Feldstein, Dan Waldinger and Steve Santucci are just three of the names many of you will remember from their previous lives with Ricoh, Canon, OKI, Sharp, etc. these guys didn’t show up at Brother to perpetuate Brother’s traditional retail market approach. They’re here to build a new program for a channel Brother hasn’t worked with in ages.
Brother has been around over 100 years. Founded in 1908, they’re HQ is in Nagoya, Japan and they operate their US subsidiary from Bridgewater, NJ, not far from Philadelphia. They have 34,000+ employees worldwide and did over $6.4 billion (USD) in 2014. They’re the biggest printer company you know nothing about. That’s about to change.
For starters, Brother has just launched a product line unique to the dealer channel. They showed some pretty robust printers that come loaded with supplies, warranties, higher duty cycles and super fast A4 print speeds (up to 52 PPM monochrome). Brother also showed several high-end scanning solutions. In all, Brother will have 13 “limited distribution” models available to dealers by April (5 mono laser, 5 desktop scanners, 2 color laser and 1 high-speed inkjet.
Brother has also started a marketing campaign designed to build awareness not only with dealers but also with customers. I just saw their commercials while watching CNN the other day. They’re clearly spending money to help make their name more recognizable with print. They’ve also launched a new website BrotherThinkOptimize.com with a heavy focus on managed print services (MPS) and A4 printers. Check out the link, their commercials are pretty entertaining.
Brother enters the channel pretty late to the game. Normally, I would say they missed their opportunity but with all the uncertainty with so many A4 vendors at the moment with respect to distribution, mergers, acquisitions, etc. combined with the lack of A4 products many dealers still have from their primary printer suppliers makes me think Brother has a real shot to grab some market share. At the very least, if dealers that need an A4 partner, they may want to take a hard look at Brother just for the simple fact that very few competitors in their market, if any, will be carrying these devices.
It was an impressive event. Brother is not just dipping a toe to test the water. They have a plan, they have products and they’re looking to expand into this channel.
