Brandmotion, an aftermarket company with a focus on automotive safety, has significantly expanded into fleet safety equipment and testing new Smart Connectivity technology.
A large percentage of the company’s business is now in RV and fleet products, said Brandmotion. 12 volt safety still remains 60 to 65 percent of the brand’s product sales, said Brandon Bahr, Head of Product Sales & Marketing.
In recent years, Brandmotion also entered another market which is now half of the company’s revenue (not just product sales, total revenue). It works with the the Dept of Transportation on smart city development and V2X (vehicle-to-anything communication, which can including vehicle-to-vehicle communication or vehicle to traffic light communication, etc). “There’s millions of dollars in testing right now in V2X and Smart Connectivity deployment (infrastructure). We do a lot of those installs. We have a nationwide installation network. We can employ technicians within a 3 hour radius anywhere in the US for the US DOT.”
Bahr joined Brandmotion in January 2022. His background was in credit financing at automotive dealerships and in operations management at Sherwin Williams.
Based on the opportunities in cameras and safety for fleets, Bahr said Brandmotion hopes to share its insights and knowledge in this market with its car audio dealers. “Any shop not considering that isn’t thinking long term. As more and more vehicles are coming standard with that, the opportunity is in the commercial space,” he said.
When the Fed mandated that back up cameras be included in new vehicles as of 2018, trucks over 10,000 pounds and RVs were excluded. “I think that’s where the opportunity lies,” he said.
In January, Brandmotion became an exclusive provider for Morgan Truck Body, which claims to be the largest manufacturer of light- and medium-duty truck bodies in North America. Brandmotion CEO Jeff Varick said the majority of big box delivery, freight and refrigeration trucks are from Morgan.
Brandmotion provides the trucks with a video streaming mirror, parking systems, and a 360 surround vision system. When a customer orders truck boxes, Morgan asks if they would like to improve safety or visibility and if so, it offers various Brandmotion packages such as always-on digital rear view mirrors or back up sensors.
That’s not to say Brandmotion is abandoning its focus on aftermarket retail. “The 12 volt shops are older friends and our bread and butter, but you have to grow,” said Varick.
