A Good Paint Job - Dulux and the Housing Market
While the property slump has an obvious knock on effect on house builders, many overlook the impact on home improvement brands. The Drum meets Kerris Bright, marketing boss at Dulux, to find out how she plans to tackle the downturn.
The marketing challenge facing AkzoNobel is encouraging people, whether everyday consumers or painting and decorating tradesmen, to buy paint products they don’t really need. With people struggling to sell up and move home and less demand for new house builds, it is an inevitable consequence that fewer tins will be sold.
Kerris Bright was appointed chief marketing officer for AkzoNobel’s global decorative paints business in January, following the firm’s takeover of ICI where she held the same role. She admits that the business will have to be inventive in its marketing in the UK and America to combat the housing slump, but she is confident that opportunities exist in other markets.
“If people are not moving home, on the face of it, they have less need to decorate and there is less need to call in the decorating professionals – which obviously has a knock-on effect to us,” she accepts. “We have to work around that and inspire people who can’t sell or move to improve their own property instead.”
Inspiring People
This idea of ‘inspiring’ people is underpinned by the Dulux website, where potential customers are given home improvement tips and encouraged to pick out favourite colour shades. But does this really translate to sales? Surely paint is a product that you will always want to see in the flesh before buying. “The web is very important to us. Yes – paint is a product that you want to test first. But we can get around that by letting people choose colour ideas online and then post them test samples.”
Armchair paint shopping might appeal to the casual consumer, but it remains a slower process than going down to your nearest DIY shop and choosing for yourself. “It’s this whole idea of taking the hassle away though,” Bright defends. “We can help you decide how you want to decorate and what colours to use and you don’t even have to leave your own living room.”
But what about this scenario: the consumer logs on to Dulux’s website, assimilates all their style tips, advice and gets colour ideas all for free, and then heads to the nearest DIY retailer and picks the same shade – but by a different brand. “Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from doing that,” Bright admits. “But why buy a different brand? Dulux has been part of your thinking all along.
“You will see cheaper tins of paint in store – and more expensive ones, come to that – so you might make that decision based on price. That’s why we communicate that you should buy Dulux because you’ll get good value for money. We might not be the cheapest, granted, but if you buy cheap paint you’ll have to use coat after coat of the stuff so it won’t be worthwhile anyway.”
As well as clearly being passionate about the web’s potential, Bright eulogises about the way innovative products can boost sales, and clearly wants Dulux’s brand image to be that of an industry standard-bearer. She talks excitedly about the way another brand in the AkzoNobel stable, Cuprinol, has introduced a product – its sprayable woodcare device - which has become ubiquitous. And it is obvious she would love a Dulux product to set the same benchmark. “Cuprinol Sprayable is a success because everyone wants their fences to look neat – but no one enjoys the hassle of laboriously daubing the wood themselves. In making woodcare so simple it changed the face of that market. We’re always looking for more innovations to have the same impact on our other markets.”
Dulux’s great white hope is the Paint Pod machine: a power-assisted roller which is supposed to take the strain out of painting and even remove the hassle of cleaning up afterwards – because it cleans itself. Retailing at upwards of £50 though, it could be in danger of being too luxurious for thrifty consumers.
Luxury
“Decorating needs to have a bit of luxury about it though; it needs to be something you can enjoy doing and not be seen as a chore,” Bright argues. “With products like this, we can not only set the standard for the decorating industry, but use it to boost sales by giving home improvement a bit of a fun feel to it.”
The futuristic-looking Paint Pod might appear gimmicky, but it could prove canny in tempting consumers to dust off their overalls in their leisure time. Regardless of how the Paint Pod sells though, Bright is not expecting any immediate economic let up in this country.
“The economic conditions in the developed world are very challenging, but these are macro-market conditions. If you look at the less developed markets, such as Asia and Latin America, we’re actually growing. There is huge opportunity for AkzoNobel’s paint brands but it isn’t necessarily restricted to this country or North America.
“My task ahead is to ensure that the tone of our global marketing is exactly right and that we’re giving the right messages to the right territories. There is huge potential for growth – just not necessarily right here.”
Kerris Bright and Angus MacIver will be speaking at The Marketing Society Scotland Conference on 18 September at Our Dynamic Earth. To book tickets please contact Helen on 020 8973 1360 or visit www.marketingsocietyscotland.com.