ITT INDUSTRIES: Outlasting Araskog, Travis Engen preempts the ITT brand

A use of identity, by a leader

New: ITT Industries - positioning, visual system and tagline

Launched: September 17, 1998

Story in brief:
All things considered this is the clearest 1998 story of the use of identity, by a CEO, as a leadership tool. And it is a tale of patience and fortitude on the part of ITT's CEO Travis Engen.

Three years earlier, you may recall, three ITT's were created by Rand Araskog's trifurcation of the remnants of Harold Geneen's fabled conglomerate. Last year this article noted the jettisoning of the ITT brand baggage by one of them, The Hartford, while Araskog hung on at ITT Corp. and Travis Engen waited it out at ITT Industries. With the subsequent absorption of ITT Corporation and its Sheraton brand into Starwood, and Araskog's retirement, identity equilibrium has once again been restored. ITT Industries is the sole ITT-branded survivor of the three.

Back in July 1995, Travis Engen knew that in contrast to hotels, entertainment or insurance, the industrial technologies division he had been named to lead into independence was the natural heir of the ITT corporate brand reputation. But he chose patience over confrontation. He told me then: "Mine will be a stealth strategy; I will hold out quietly as ITT Industries until either I make an identity-changing acquisition or they give it up." Later, there was real concern that confusion, dilution and bad publicity may have irreversibly damaged the ITT brand.

New names and logos were considered. But Engen held fast, and providence assisted in the form of Starwood. Given a clear track, advisors Landor Associates and Doremus Advertising predicated a new "ITT" on the core competence of engineering, the value-added common to ITT Industries' diverse businesses. (Engen's advertised title is now "Aeronautical Engineer, Chairman, President and CEO.")

The important lesson? The most potent and durable component of corporate reputation is clout. We rapidly forget poor management, confusion, and even immorality. The last attribute we forget, it seems, is importance... which also happens to be the best soil in which to grow a new reputation. That is why "ITT" was worth waiting for.

Credits:
C.E.O. - Travis Engen
Identity counsel, Design - Doremus Advertising and Landor Associates

First Impressions:
Landor's "engineered blocks" symbol brilliantly shifts the connections our minds will make to the ITT brand. The visual system, and launch communications (we can't show them here) were also of outstanding quality.