Hart Tools

In the first half of 2019, work began on a secretive project at Techtronics Industries. Temporary walls were erected in the warehouse space. Meetings were happening behind closed doors. Sometimes you’d hear whispers of Project: Red Deer. Soon, I was brought into the circle of trust, and I learned that we were working on a huge product launch into Walmart. This was a big deal: our largest customer was The Home Depot, who sold RYOBI and RIDGID power tools. They weren’t going to love it when we created tools to that would compete directly with RYOBI into Walmart stores.

Why “Red Deer”? It had been decided that since we already owned a brand called Hart, we were going to use that brand name for this new line of hand tools, power tools, outdoor equipment and powered lifestyle products. A hart is an adult male red deer. In fact, Hart’s brand color had been red up until this point. Of course, we were launching the tools into Walmart, as a house brand, and we wanted to strongly associate the brand with their store, so we changed the color. Our red deer was now going to be blue.

This was truly a collaborative effort. The brand logo and symbol already existed, but everything else was new. In addition to the work on the web site, emails, social for which my team was directly responsible, we shared photography direction duties with our colleagues on the print side, as hundreds of product, in use, and lifestyle shots had to be conceived and executed.

We soft-launched into Walmart just before Black Friday, then in February 2020, officially launched the full product line, which continues to grow and thrive today.