CHICAGO— In the five years since Rob Kay acquired Taylor Precision Products, the company has expanded its presence in numerous housewares categories through new product development as well as acquisition.
With a dozen brands now in the fold, the company has given its corporate identity a facelift with the recent debut of its Filament Brands name. Shifting away from Taylor, Filament will serve as the umbrella moniker for the company’s brands that include Rabbit, RBT, Houdini, Chef’n, Vibe, Taylor Kitchen, Taylor Bath, Taylor Weather, Springfield, Salter and EatSmart.
“We intentionally crafted the company in terms of the quality and capabilities that we wanted,” Kay told HOMEWORLD BUSINESS®. “Since the origins of the company started with Taylor, that was always the corporate name. We realized now that we have created something beyond the brand equity that we have in the Taylor name and wanted to recognize this with both our internal and external messaging.”
He said the Filament name was selected based on the original light bulb design from Thomas Edison, which Kay feels sends a message that the company is committed to forward-facing ideas when it comes to product development.
“We are an innovation engine, it is core to our DNA,” he said. “We focus on bringing innovative products with true differentiation to the marketplace on a branded basis.”
Having all brands under the Filament umbrella is also consistent with the work Kay has done in recent years to streamline the company’s sales, product design and development teams from its many brands.
Pointing to the acquisitions of Metrokane and Chef’n, Filament today has one cohesive sales team that sells all of the brands across the board.
“We have successfully formed an elevated platform for the entire company that reflects one of the company’s core values— innovation— which is reflected in the name Filament,” he said. “We took the pieces and created a company that has meaningful products and brands.”
With the company’s acquisitions, Kay said Filament was able to add some “phenomenal pieces” and additional skillsets that when combined served to strengthen its capabilities.
One example of how he has been able to successfully integrate the strengths of the company’s newer brands is with Seattle-based Chef’n. Led by inventor/founder David Holcomb, who is also Kay’s business partner, Filament has a very large and scalable design team with Chef’n.
“Chef’n is known for its best in class in design and best in class with the trade. With our added efforts, specifically our marketing and direct to consumer programs, we have been able to build the brand out further to the consumer and increase that velocity,” said Kay.
Meanwhile, Chef’n’s design prowess is also playing an important role in the recent rebranding of the Taylor Kitchen line of kitchen scales and temperature measurement tools.
“With Taylor Kitchen relaunching a new look, we have again taken our combined capabilities at Filament, from a creative packaging and product design perspective to bring that and add differentiation to the line. We are cross-fertilizing so that we can offer best-in-class in all capabilities,” Kay explained.
Another example has been the recent launch of RBT, a more design-focused line of bar tools and accessories from Metrokane’s Rabbit brand.
“We have a lot of momentum, here. We launched the sub-brand RBT, a high-end wine and barware brand into the marketplace last year. It was a design statement and from a consumer perspective we were able to get placements where we haven’t before. With our team in Seattle, we can now offer that design-driven capability,” he said.
While Kay stated that Filament is at a reflection point, he feels the company has its core in place and a scale and refined infrastructure that has set it up for future growth.
“There is a lot of excitement at Filament Brands. We feel we have successfully merged company cultures and created our own culture that is fun and forward-thinking. We are looking at everything we do, we are looking to evolve well into the future,” he said.
