Screen time for Baileigh builds brand

TV, movie exposure help spur sales of metal fabrication equipment

By: Charlie Mathews, The Herald Times Reporter

MANITOWOC — "Iron Man" is a Hollywood blockbuster movie hit, already raking in about $200 million at the box office, including those shelling out their bucks at the downtown Strand Theatre.

The action-packed, superhero thriller has a Manitowoc connection with metal fabrication equipment from Baileigh Industrial appearing in two scenes.

"Iron Man" is about billionaire industrialist Tony Stark who is kidnapped and forced to build a weapon. Instead, he constructs a suit of armor and escapes, according to the film's official Web site. Upon uncovering a plot with global implications, he wears the suit and protects the world as Iron Man.

"We thought 'Iron Man' was an exciting opportunity, and we'll benefit from it," said Stephan Nordstrom, president and chief executive officer of the "master distributor of machinery" company, based in the city's Westside I-Tec Park.

It wasn't the first and won't be the last time Baileigh Industrial works with TV and film producers in product trade-outs.

It's part of Nordstrom and staff's aggressive marketing strategy to build brand awareness.

"Depending on how the lawyers ink it, we will be using 'Iron Man' posters on our Web site, and in our mailers," Nordstrom said of the exposure opportunities linked to the movie starring Robert Downey Jr.

For "Iron Man," as well as shows like "Hard Shine" and "American Choppers," the typical arrangement calls for Baileigh Industrial to ship one or more of its tube and pipe benders, sheet metal shears, band saws, ring rollers, or other piece of equipment to the motorcycle, exotic car or superhero costume fabricator.

Depending on the deal, the equipment might get shipped back to Manitowoc or become part of the working inventory of equipment of, for example, Paul Teutler Sr. and Paul Teutler Jr. of Orange County Choppers.

Money doesn't change hands but, in addition to the on-air or on-screen exposure, Baileigh places photographs of the show or movie stars with testimonial verbiage into its own product catalog, on its Web site,
www.bii1.com, or into trade journal advertising in publications like The Fabricator and Tube and Pipe Journal.

"We are super aggressive when it comes to marketing, and when economic times take a downturn, we get more aggressive and try to gain more market share," said Jim Newberg, Baileigh Industrial's supply chain coordinator and marketing coordinator.

Building larger facility

Business at Baileigh is booming, too, with the 9-year-old company already having outgrown its 35,000-square-foot distribution and training center in the I-Tec Park it created in February 2007.

On Thursday, the city's Industrial Development Corporation authorized David Less, city planner, to negotiate the sale of a 15-acre parcel in the I-Tec Park.

Nordstrom wants to build a new 80,000- to 100,000-square-foot facility to serve the small and medium-sized fabricators across America who are his principal customer base.

What is he doing right?

"I have hired smarter people than I am … with a very intelligent group of people here and in Europe," said Nordstrom, who also has a distribution center bursting at the seams in Coventry, England.

"We're marketing our brand and backing it up with high-quality products and high-quality service," Nordstrom said. "We're using the mass media to propel ourselves, like all the TV shows, and we'll be working with NASCAR."

He said sales have doubled in the past couple of years, without needing to hire additional Baileigh employees because it has multiple distributor networks with their own staffs.

The various pieces of fabrication equipment helping to shape, cut and bend "metal into muscle" might be as light as 100 pounds, or as heavy as 7,500 pounds, ranging in price from about $2,000 to $60,000.

The metal might be aluminum, steel, cast iron, bronze, copper, "almost anything," Newberg said.

The equipment is produced by manufacturing facilities in Taiwan, Italy, Turkey, Portugal and the U.S., including Rusch Machine & Design in Two Rivers.

Over the next several years, Nordstrom plans to open distribution centers on the West and East coasts, currently eyeing potential sites in Ontario, Calif., and Baltimore. "But, we'll keep our brain hub in Manitowoc," he said.

Nordstrom is convinced Baileigh Industrial's mission statement will continue to be an operational reality — "Our business is directed at exploiting stale competition, emerging market niches, e-commerce, multiple distribution network, new markets and our growth products."

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