I’m one of those people who remember the name of every teacher I ever had. In sixth grade, my teacher was Miss Marion Peseux (pronounced like “kazoo” with a “p”). A maiden lady of about 60, Miss Peseux was like “the little teapot” — short and stout. She always carried a crumpled Kleenex tucked into her belt, wore her pure white hair in a pageboy and had a rather disarming pencil-thin mustache. I remember vividly the 10 minutes daily that Miss Peseux would quiz us on the ads from The New York Times. She’d fold the page over to show just the headline of an ad, and would make us try to figure out what it was selling and why it used that message. It was the only thing I was ever really good at it in school. Miss Peseux loved marketing, particularly ads that had clever copy or graphics, and she encouraged us to find examples. To this day, I can’t look at any marketing program that really grabs me without hearing my inner 10-year-old think, “Wait until Miss Peseux gets a load of this!”
If she had ever seen the incredible mechanical knife display from Victorinox, makers of the Swiss Army pocket knife, I’m sure she would have somehow figured out a way to bring it to class. It was, and still is, that clever.
This success story didn’t have an auspicious origin. In the late nineteenth century, Swiss workers were emigrating to other parts of Europe and abroad in search of manufacturing jobs. In 1891, knife maker Karl Elsener and some two dozen fellow craftsmen founded the Swiss Cutlers Association to compete against the very successful German knife industry. The association’s first delivery of knives to the Swiss Army was disappointing: The “Soldier’s Knives” it made were functional, but heavy when compared to the German versions. One by one, the two dozen cutlers went out of business. Elsener held out the longest, but ultimately he too went broke.
Determined to try again, Elsener persuaded his relatives to fund another venture; this time, he was banking on a radically different knife design.
Elsener had realized that Army officers of the nineteenth century were very conscious of cutting a dashing appearance. No officer wanted to wear, or even use, the same type of equipment as his troops. (Right up through World War I, in fact, many officers went into battle carrying nothing more life-threatening than a whistle and swagger stick.) For these style-mavens, Elsener created a knife with six built-in tools; the streamlined design required just two springs to fold everything up into the knife’s handle. He called it the “Officer’s Knife,” designed and marketed in stark contrast to his “Soldier’s Knife.” Upon its debut in 1897, officers flocked to cutlery stores to buy the smart new pocketknife that was so much more functional than the equipment issued by the Army.
After the end of World War II, the knife (by now, made of stainless steel) became a favorite of American servicemen and was broadly distributed through military PXs. An ongoing problem for the brand, however, was cutting through the clutter in such stores. After all, there were very few retailers — civilian or military — that sold just knives. Even in knife-specialty stores, Victorinox had to fight against a wide variety of imitators and competitors for display and shelf space.
In 1967, Carl Elsener, Sr., great grandson of the founder, solved the challenge of 1) showing potential consumers that the knives had multiple tools in the same case, and 2) quickly communicating to passersby that a store sold Victorinox products.
Up to that point, most knife companies used locked hardwood cases with glass covers to display their products. Consumers couldn’t view the blades without hunting down a clerk to unlock the case. But in a “eureka!” stroke worthy of his inventive great-grandfather, Elsener devised the Swiss Army Multi-tool Mechanical Display. This in-store phenomenon was a 30.5″-high by 25″-wide by 7.5″-deep replica of the “Officer’s Knife” in plastic, with an electrical motor to drive hidden levers. When plugged in, the display unit looked like a giant knife with all eight of the silver-plated blades opening and closing in a sequential ballet that stopped sidewalk traffic wherever it was used.
“This display helped our products to become famous all over the world,” Carl Elsener later remarked. By the 1990s, Victorinox had distributed more than 10,000 of the displays to stores, with results that “far exceeded expectations.” Retailers were so enamored of these bright red and silver kinetic sculptures that they placed them dead center in their most prominent display windows, surrounded by each of the Victorinox models in stock.
With sales booming, it wasn’t long before someone got the bright idea of sourcing the mechanical displays overseas. In 1994, a Chinese vendor proposed to the U.S. and Swiss marketing divisions that it make the displays substantially cheaper. “We and Switzerland bought a trial inventory to test them,“ recalls Donna Girot, Victorinox’s manager of marketing. “They didn’t pass our quality control: they stuttered occasionally. Needless to say, we immediately went back to the high-quality, reliable Swiss-made displays.” These hard-working units have functioned in stores for more than 20 years and continue to run without problems. Only the red scale components, which tend to fade from sun exposure in store windows, require occasional replacement.
I remember the first time I saw one of these multi-tool displays. It was 1974 and I was walking down Broadway, close to Times Square in New York City, an area that has to rank as one of the busiest sidewalks anywhere in the world. There in the center of the window of one of those ubiquitous city stores that seemingly hold 500 different items, each with a hand lettered orange sign screaming out the price, was this giant Swiss Army Knife — and it was moving! I stood there unashamedly for at least two minutes marveling at the sheer genius of the whole thing. I’d always known size counted, especially in knives, but here was someone selling something little and complex by making it big and simple.
How many stores sell enough of Victorinox’s products to justify a display piece that costs the company $260 each? Over 21,500 displays have been placed worldwide since the design was created in 1967. In the last few years, annual placement has dropped off to a still healthy 600 to 800 displays a year as retailers have consolidated. And no one knows the display’s shelf life because they just keep on running. As Girot recalls, “I had one customer blame the fact that her business was down last year because I couldn’t get all of her stores one of these. Yes, everybody wants one!”
There is a large and enthusiastic group of collectors of Victorinox’s knives, any one of whom would consider landing one of the display units as the collectable equivalent of snatching the Holy Grail. The most famous, if not the biggest, of these collectors is former Dallas TV star Larry Hagman, who was presented gratis with one of the displays by the company, but who still went outside to buy a second display as a back-up. I hate to admit it, but I understand his behavior. Hey, you never know when they’ll stop making these beauties.
The Elsener family moved the company from bankruptcy to a profitable privately held company that produces more than 100,000 multi-tools daily. The firm also produces Swiss Army watches and Victorinox apparel. As you read this story, there is probably someone, somewhere in a Detroit high-rise, praying to the God that made him that this quiet little company never ever gets it into its head to make cars!
Rod Taylor is senior VP of promotions for CoActive Marketing in Cincinnati. E-Mail him at [email protected] if you have a promotion that you’d like to see profiled here.
Mac the Knife
One of the best endorsements the Victorinox brand ever received came from a television show. From 1985 to 1992, actor Richard Dean Anderson starred as “MacGyver” in the hit series of the same name. An ex-Green Beret, special agent MacGyver used his wits instead of violence to thwart his enemies.
The show (which is getting new viewers on the TV Land cable station) featured one of the greatest examples of “unplaced” product placement in TV history: In most weekly episodes, fans would find MacGyver using his trusty Swiss Army Knife to diffuse a bomb, re-program a rocket, pick a lock or fix a computer. A generation of kids grew up convinced that “It’s the knife!”
The modern army
The Swiss Army Knife
You grew up knowing and loving has adapted admirably to fit the times. I’m embarrassed to admit that the attachment I use the most is the toothpick. There’s no doubt Victorinox is ready for the twenty-first century based on some of their innovative new products.
SwissCard® Lite
Attached to your credit cards? Want one with 13 different features, none of which is accumulating debt? This multi-purpose tool packs flat, much like a credit card, but has a variety of neat built-ins, the most unusual of which are a magnifying glass and a light emitting diode, which actually makes this item perfect for signing your real credit card’s receipt in most restaurants.
CyberTool
If you’ve got a computer geek anywhere on your gift list your shopping woes are over. This is the true multi-purpose tool, coming in three different models boasting 29, 34 or 41 different features, the most notable of which are 13 different screwdrivers, plus a bit key and bit holder with multiple tiny bits. This knife was specifically designed for work with computers and small electronic appliances, which makes me automatically allergic to it.
Midnite Manager
I can’t recall ever having to write in the dark, but I’d like one of these just in case I suddenly need to change my will during the next blackout. The other eight features in this small knife pale next to the light emitting diode positioned next to the ballpoint pen — write on in the darkness!
Altimeter
Just the thing for that next climb up the north face of the Eiger, this product has 15 rather conventional features and two that aren’t: an altimeter and a digital thermometer display built into the handle, just in case you weren’t sure exactly why you were cold and terrified.
SwissChamp®XLT
This is where “knife envy” goes to die. If you’re marooned on a desert island and can’t find all the tools you need in the 50 features on this baby, then you’re probably not going to make the rescue boat. Among the more unexpected implements are a pharmaceutical spatula, chisel, wrench, hex bit, pliers and sewing eye.
Network
