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Milwaukee Packout – you know of it, right? Packout is Milwaukee’s line of tool storage products.
Milwaukee launched the Packout product line back in 2017. Yes, it’s been around for just 6 years – doesn’t it feel like longer.
I have been wondering about how impactful a name can be in selling a product.
I recently conducted a Google Trend search for 3 terms – Milwaukee Packout, Milwaukee Tool Box, and Milwaukee Pack Out.
There are some searches for Packout using the Pack Out misspelling, but not many.
What’s interesting is that there are far more searches for “Milwaukee Packout” than “Milwaukee tool box.” I have yet to see anything like this for other brands.
And will you look at that upwards interest trend?! I conducted searches for other tool storage brand names, and Packout stands out in how it ramps up.
If you look at the search interest trends for say Craftsman VersaStack vs Craftsman tool box, it’s nothing like the trend for Milwaukee’s Packout.
What you see here for the Craftsman product is typical, and you will see similar for most brands’ lines of modular tool boxes. It’s the very high interest in Milwaukee’s Packout as a brand that is not.
Is there something about “Packout” that made it more memorable?
What’s so special about Packout that isn’t true for ToughSystem, Stack Pack, Stack, ModBox, MakPac, VersaStack, Tstak, CaseStack, TradeStack, or other such names for tool brands’ storage lineups?
Packout simply dominates, even against longer-established brand names such as Systainer.
Google search trends can be fickle to analyze – it’s difficult to draw conclusions without first making a lot of assumptions.
But in this case, it’s clear that Milwaukee Packout is special.
Tool users are still searching for generic terms such as “Milwaukee tool box.” That “Milwaukee Packout” is a more popular search term than “Milwaukee tool box” is an excellent example of effective branding.
Packout is also well on its way to becoming a generic trademark. I occasionally here “Packout” being used to describe other brands’ modular tool box storage systems. It might not be long before Packout becomes the moniker for any brand’s tool boxes, similar to what happened with Milwaukee’s Sawzall brand of reciprocating saws.
I don’t think that smart branding is responsible for the success of Milwaukee’s Packout system, but it certainly didn’t hurt.
