Wilkins Marketing Strategy Session May 2026

The smell of stale coffee and fresh marker ink hangs in the air. On the whiteboard, a single phrase is circled in red: “Wilkins: Trusted. But not chosen.”

Mara kicks off. She clicks a slide titled The Awareness Cliff . “Brand recall for Wilkins in the consumer home improvement sector is 11%. That’s below ‘store brand generic’ at 14%,” she says flatly. “We are the invisible giant. We sell 2 million gallons of industrial epoxy a year, but on Amazon, our one-star reviews come from dads who say, ‘This industrial tube didn’t come with a nozzle.’ We’re selling a jet engine to people who want a bicycle pump.” wilkins marketing strategy session

He turns to face the room. “For 90 years, we’ve sold to engineers who read data sheets. For the next 90, we sell to human beings who are afraid of making a mistake. The strategy isn’t ‘make Wilkins cooler.’ It’s ‘make Wilkins easier to trust in a hurry.’” The smell of stale coffee and fresh marker

Mara erases part of the whiteboard and draws two columns: vs. Life Mode . She clicks a slide titled The Awareness Cliff

“Our value is zero failure rate. A roof tile stuck with Wilkins stays stuck. That’s boring, but true. If we put a cartoon lizard on the package, the factory guys will think we’ve gone soft.”

The room divides.

“Here is the strategy: Vertical Brand Utility. We do not rebrand. We reposition .”