Kenworth & PACCAR Parts
Driving Lifetime Value: How Kenworth & PACCAR Parts Use MATS for Brand Scaling, Engineering, and Building Loyalty
Kenworth Truck Company and its aftermarket division, PACCAR Parts, represent the peak of heavy-duty transport engineering and asset support. To maintain their dominant market position, they must continuously engage with the entire transportation ecosystem. Central to this strategy is their decades-long presence at the Mid-America Trucking Show (MATS), which anchors their annual marketing, product launches, and customer retention initiatives.
Erik Kremsner, Marketing Manager, Kenworth Truck Company
Challenge:
For global leaders in truck manufacturing and aftermarket parts, maintaining a genuine connection throughout a truck’s total life cycle is imperative for long term success in the commercial vehicle sector. Standard marketing fails to establish a feedback loop or achieve a deeper customer relationship, leaving brands vulnerable to customer churn over a vehicle’s lifespan.
Solution:
Kenworth and PACCAR Parts overcame these barriers by using MATS as a central hub for relationship-building and technical research. Instead of a passive display, they created a unified enterprise pavilion by incorporating premium exhibit space, strategic sponsorships, and high-visibility branding. They used the show to debut major milestones, like Kenworth’s 100-year anniversary tour, while running live sales and pre-owned programs. Simultaneously, factory engineers gather direct field insights, while sales staff demo new equipment and onboard drivers into digital loyalty networks.
Results:
By implementing a comprehensive, multi-channel presence, MATS has delivered sustained market leadership, stronger brand equity, and high customer retention. By shifting from transactional selling to lifetime relationship management, the combined brands successfully engaged everyone from first-tier fleet managers to third-generation owner-operators. The event converted heavy foot traffic into actionable business data by signing up thousands of operators for digital loyalty apps, while the show’s early-year timing generated immediate commercial momentum for the remaining twelve months.
Building Lifetime Relationships and Engaging Every Owner Tier
For Kenworth and PACCAR Parts, the value of MATS lies in prioritizing long-term relationships over short-term sales. The show provides a predictable point to re-engage clients, evaluate fleet needs, and verify product value. Erik Kremsner of Kenworth highlighted that it is the people who bring the brand back, describing attendees as the hard-working core of the industry. Genevieve Bekkerus of PACCAR Parts, a 10 plus-year participant at MATS, notes that the event allows them to “develop a more meaningful relationship. It’s not just that transactional one-stop, but it’s over the lifetime.”
This deep connection is also about understanding the culture and passion that fuel the industry. Kremser,
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experiencing his first MATS, was struck by its authenticity. “This is trucking,” he remarked. “You get to experience that real trucking environment and that builds a connection to the vehicles that I work on every single day and promote.” This emotional connection and understanding of the pride and customization that drivers invest in their trucks is an invaluable asset that cannot be gained through any other channel.
This approach enables a comprehensive, multi-tier market strategy. While some OEMs may focus strictly on corporate accounts buying new fleets, PACCAR Parts uses MATS to engage secondary and tertiary buyers—the true backbone of the aftermarket. Bekkerus noted the show’s unique ability to attract first owners and large carriers alongside second- and third-generation owner-operators and vocational drivers.
This broad reach is vital for supporting aging transportation assets. As modern trucks last longer, they require a steady supply of quality parts. MATS serves as a collaborative space to discuss service needs directly with operators running new and older vehicles. Kenworth integrated this seamlessly into their exhibit, showcasing certified pre-owned programs and placing a new truck for sale beside a curated timeline spanning from a 1923 legacy model to a brand-new, limited-edition W900.
Live Loyalty Data, Factory Engineering Loops, and Seasonal Momentum
To maximize the value of this massive audience, the PACCAR network uses high show-floor traffic to fuel its CRM and data systems. The physical booth serves as a live onboarding hub, enabling reps to register operators on-site into Kenworth and PACCAR Parts loyalty programs. Kremsner explained that live registration allows the organization to capture immediate consumer profiles, track buying behaviors, and build long-term connections. This centralized data funnel brings PACCAR Parts and Kenworth together into one footprint, allowing the parent enterprise to promote its total brand equity as a unified front.
This active data collection is paired with a real-time engineering feedback loop. Kenworth deploys factory design engineers to the exhibition floor to interact firsthand with active truck operators. By observing how drivers modify and customize their machinery, Kenworth harvests field data that is applied directly to future production runs. Kremsner noted that because the audience includes active users building and customizing trucks, the company gets an unmediated opportunity to understand how vehicles are used daily. If an operator makes a specific, clever update on a truck, Kenworth can capture that ingenuity and apply it to standard OEM designs.
Finally, Kenworth treats the early annual scheduling of MATS as a seasonal momentum engine. Because the event takes place early in the year, it allows the brand to engage audiences and establish partnerships when other marketing channels cannot. Kremsner explained that starting the year off here creates an immediate burst of momentum that carries the brand through the rest of the year. It also serves as the ideal launchpad for major campaigns, such as Kenworth’s 100-year anniversary trailer tour and PACCAR Parts’ celebration of the 30th anniversary of its TRP brand line.
Conclusion:
The partnership between the PACCAR ecosystem and the Mid-America Trucking Show proves the compounding value of face-to-face marketing by providing an irreplaceable opportunity to listen, learn, and engage directly with end-users. By leveraging MATS to manage full-lifecycle asset support, deploy factory engineers for real-world feedback, and convert foot traffic into loyalty accounts, Kenworth and PACCAR Parts have built an unbreakable customer retention model. This deep, firsthand understanding of customer needs and passions allows them to build better products, foster lasting relationships, and authentically participate in trucking culture – ensuring their continued market leadership well into the future.
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