13.04.2010

UpRight becomes Snorkel

The UpRight will no longer appear in powered access as the company rebrands as Snorkel.

Tanfield owns both Snorkel and UpRight and earlier this year adopted the Snorkel orange and white livery world wide. At Bauma it is taking the next step and dropping the UpRight brand name.
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Snorkel was already the favoured brand in North America and Australia/New Zealand, while UpRight was used in Europe, the Middle East and Africa where it is the stronger and better known brand.
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The UpRight brand is going

Darren Kell Tanfield and UpRight chief executive said: “We have spent the past three years harmonising these two distinct brands. There is now one global product range and one united global team dedicated to building, selling and supporting these machines. The time is therefore right to give our company a unified, global identity.”

“One brand ensures clear, simple messaging for Snorkel's growing global customer base. And as part of the process, Snorkel has assigned new model designations to its worldwide product range.”

“Although the UpRight name will no longer be used to market aerial lifts, Snorkel will continue to support all existing UpRight machines in the field.
UpRight has a proud history and one that we will continue to cherish. Going forward, Snorkel embodies the core values of both companies - a customer-focused, global organisation that produces robust, reliable machines that are easy to operate and easy to maintain.”

Vertikal Comment

Once the company adopted a single product line and livery it was only time before it took the next step and adopted a single brand name. While UpRight is by far the stronger brand in the European region the UpRight brand was mortally damaged in North America following a series of bad decisions in the mid 2000’s under the company’s previous owners.

In Australia and New Zealand Snorkel had a stronger presence being a local manufacturer for many years.

These two factors alone meant that it would have been to hard a job to adopt the UpRight brand worldwide. The decision brings to an end over 40 years of UpRight powered access products. While not everyone will be happy with this decision, this is as good a time as any, with the market at a low ebb it can start building on a single brand ready for the upturn.