Continuity rebrand gives ContiTech uniformity, performance advantages

HANOVER—ContiTech, a division of Continental A.G., is overhauling the branding for its industrial drive belts to ensure "Continuity."

The befitting new moniker means employing a higher level of consistency in supply chain, production and innovation for the company's V-belt and timing belt lines.

It means offering uniformity to customers in both packaging and color-coding.

The overhaul even means a redesign of some belts to reflect varying performance levels not previously offered—from standard, to advanced, to the highest level: supreme.

"Really it is even more than just harmonization and standardization of the brand," Robert Jack, sales and marketing director for industrial distribution for ContiTech, told Rubber News. "With the Conti premium brand—the highest quality belt in marketplace—we wanted to better visually convey to the customer what they are purchasing.

"Previously, there has been too much complexity across the globe with varying brands and product names, and this is a disservice to the customer. We want to standardize and harmonize."

With this rebranding push, the $6.4 billion unit of Continental is ensuring "Continuity" around the world—from its facilities in North America, to Chihuahua, Mexico, to ContiTech's numerous industrial belt production locations in India and beyond.

All regions will be using Continuity belts by late 2023, said Jack, who is directing the rollout. The rebranding officially begins in April on the industrial belt side. It does not cover automotive belts.

"We are harmonizing our portfolio worldwide and improving transparency for our customers, who can now read the performance level and properties of a belt directly on the product," said Rodrigo Maia, who leads the industrial drive belt business for ContiTech. "With our unified approach, we will continue to strengthen the Continental brand, and our belts will appear in the premium look that matches their product quality.

"This opens the door for further improvements and new products."

Previously, Conti belts had a white Conti logo against a black background. The colorized yellows and oranges now stand out much more prominently.

"The belts look great," Jenelle Ogden, head of Americas Industrial Distribution for the power transmission group, told Rubber News. "They really do convey a higher-quality, premium product. It's not just a difference in the name or appearance.

"The characteristics are different depending on the performance. This is a huge difference from where we were. Currently the belts are branded with silver and white ink. This introduction of color is a game-changer for us."

As one of the three governing tenets for ContiTech belts (along with quality and consistency), the performance levels dictates a series of upgrades and "modernizations" for some in the drive belt series, as well as completely new product lines to expand existing ranges.

"To introduce premium brands and a 'supreme' line ... this is bigger than standardizing just the brand names," Jack said. "The performance levels required new engineering—new belts, essentially—to meet customer needs at different tiers."

For instance, the advanced V-belts will be aramid or kevlar, while supreme V-belts will comprise polyurethane and carbon cord. With some exceptions, essentially all belts prior to this were considered a "standard" performance level for the aggregate movement spaces and synchronous belting needs.

In particular, Jack said, the timing (synchronous) belt line will switch from neoprene to EPDM, "a better material with a broader temperature range for timing belts," he said.

As ContiTech bundles its name into the more transparent and efficient drive belt marketing structure, the uniformity in production across global facilities should allow Conti to pick up production at one plant if another is forced to shut down.

Unplanned closures became commonplace during the pandemic, and the risk of maintaining disjointed, asymmetrical production processes across company facilities was laid bare.

"Our customers and partners, and of course ourselves, will benefit from our globally harmonized, transparent and broad portfolio," Maia said. "If, for example, a plant fails owing to exceptional circumstances in the future, another location can step in.

"This enables us to work more efficiently and increase productivity."

Jack said Conti wants to "better communicate who we are to the customer—keeping in mind the three tenets of quality, performance and consistency."

"The transition is coming, but currently we don't do that as well as we could," Jack said. "This (rebranding) really offers a great opportunity to professionally convey to customers what we do."

The inconsistency in belt manufacturing, for example, reared its head in 2020 and 2021 for ContiTech. For example, Jack said, a B60 belt—with a "B" cross section at 60 inches, used in industrial applications—built in the U.S. is the same as the "High-T Plus" belt built in Mexico.

In India, it is the Conti-V belt that is synonymous with other belts of different names.

"This will eliminate these inconsistencies," Jack said. "That is what we are working toward with this rebranding."

COVID provided a stark reminder of the benefits to uniformity.

"When the Chihuahua (Mexico) plant shut down (in 2021), it was a plant that produced a lot of common belts for North America," Jack said. "And many of those customers were out of luck for six weeks or more because they did not necessarily know to look for the same belt (under a different name).

"This is an excellent example as to why we are moving toward that global harmonization—because unforeseen circumstances will happen again in the future. If this happens in an emergency again, we can provide a consistent product across the planet."

Ogden said the transformation will provide needed transparency for customers.

"This offers flexibility going forward," she said. "It gives us the flexibility to fully utilize our manufacturing footprint."

And it is one of the many reasons Conti chose the somewhat self-evident "Continuity" branding, as all products and services now can be delivered uniformly to partners and customers, the company said in a Jan. 31 release.

ContiTech, one of three major business units for Continental along with automotive and tire, has six distinct segments itself, including the power transmission (industrial) group; conveying solutions; industrial fluid solutions; surface solutions; mobile fluid systems; and advanced dynamics solutions.

Within power transmission, Ogden said ContiTech focuses on industrial applications such as sand and gravel, aggregate, food and beverage, HVAC and ACHE, or air-cooled heat exhangers for the V-belt and synchronous, or timing belt, spaces.

Logging and lumber, material handling and packaging, recycling and energy extraction also are prominent V-belt-driven markets.

Besides V-belts and timing belts, ContiTech manufactures poly-V belts, flat belts and other specialty belt drives.