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Dipped Product Ltd
(DPL) had everything that a successful Sri Lankan exporter would
hope for – a good marketing strategy, clients in the right
places, and of course a sound product. Yet while having all
these qualities, they still felt there was scope to provide
greater value to their customers.
“We were supplying
rubber gloves to a range of global clients who we considered our
partners. Whilst this was a solid base we saw an opportunity for
incremental growth through our own brand,” recalled J.A.G.
Anandarajah, Managing Director of DPL.
The company, part of the giant Hayleys Group, produces three
types of gloves for the household & consumer, industrial &
personal, and medical segments. It is a global partner of 3M
Scotch brand and supplies to several supermarkets like Tesco.
Impressively, the product is available in nearly 65 countries.
DPL is the fourth largest manufacturer in the world of the first
two categories and an active supplier to the medical industry in
the third category.
Looking to produce its own brand, the company turned to &Brand,
the brand consultants, for an exercise that would eventually
enhance a product that was already well established in the
market.“We wanted to enhance our image. We wanted DPL to be
recognised as a brand … not under a different label. Internally
... within the company we wanted people to understand,
contribute, and live up the new image,” said the DPL CEO.
&Brand took over the assignment and some 18 months later
conceptualized a brand and an image that had customers and
stakeholders talking about it and employees living it.
The company has developed three brand names for its range of
gloves while continuing to supply to clients. It is also, for
the first time, creating a path in the domestic market while
setting its eyes on India as its next big stop.
The branding exercise was at two levels – corporate and product.
Anandarajah says corporate brands are a reflection of the
company’s personality. It’s about the people, not just the
buildings. “The name itself doesn’t carry any value; we wanted
people to be part of it,” he said adding: “that was what we were
looking for in a corporate brand.”
Strategy
Ruchi Gunewardene, CEO of &Brand, explained the strategy and the
concept of the DPL branding exercise. “We knew DPL was a world
class producer of rubber gloves and one of the top three
non-medical gloves’ manufacturers in the world.” “It also had
very strong partners which enabled it to take the product to
different parts of the world and introduce it in both Europe and
the US.”
The strategy in this exercise, he said, was on capturing the
company’s very competent technical capability and integrating
that into a strong coherent proposition that ‘”can be used as a
marketing tool to enhance DPL’s perception in existing customers
as well as new customers.”
“That was the challenge,” he said adding that instead of looking
at the strengths and values of the company that had driven its
success, “we looked at the long term business partnerships that
were driving the business.”
Gunewardene and his team at &Brand felt this was the way forward
in developing a corporate brand and a product brand. “Many of
their partners have been with them for many years, many of them
from a small base to large volumes in Europe and other places.
That was an extremely valuable asset,” he recalled.
In the development stage, Gunawardene asked himself many things:
“What are we looking at? What was this offering that DPL had?
How did these long term partnerships develop where the partner
and DPL set up a platform for growth?”
After a process that meant speaking to a cross section of
stakeholders including customers, clients, directors and
business partners, &Brand realised the DPL product was all about
‘Handling you with care.’ “There was a bit of pun in there,”
laughed Gunawardene. In the real sense however the slogan
reflected how the company treated and respected its partners,
customers and end-users.
Design
For Michel Nugawela, Director at &Brand, the creative design
part of this assignment was getting to work with a world class
company and top notch products that at any time would be worn by
an employee in an highly advanced factory or state-of-the-art
hospital in some part of the developed world. “Here was a Sri
Lankan manufacturing company that was one of the world’s leading
players in the glove industry – it was within the global top
five,” he said, as he reflected on the design that was brought
in to develop Gunawardene’s strategy.
“In addition to traditional entrepreneurship, there was a very
strong skills set at work. Equally important was that 80 percent
of DPL’s customers, many of whom are distributors, had developed
close and continuous partnerships with the company for over 15
years.”
With this information in hand, Nugawela set out the design phase
in a brick-by-brick approach that focused on two things:
* Re-imaging DPL. Since this was a company that didn’t
advertise, &Brand had to work with its annual report, making it
more meaningful and relevant to its customers;
* Secondly, to redevelop the packaging for the industrial,
medical, and retail segments the company operated in.
To a large extent DPL, being part of the Hayleys family, wasn’t
a publicity-conscious organization and didn’t advertise its
products or successes like other companies. That was in a way
the Hayleys culture of being low profile and letting its work
speak for itself …rather than advertise its successes.
Re-imaging
Each of DPL’s annual reports since 2001, developed by &Brand,
now began to lever the proposition of long term business
partnerships built on trust.
DPL was (and still is) positioned as the reassuring voice in the
category–a beacon of credible experience and impressive
knowledge for its many customers and end-consumers. For example
in DPL’s latest 2006-07 annual report, Sheldon Cohen, Executive
Vice President of Magid Glove & Safety, USA, a leading provider
of gloves in North America and a long-standing DPL customer, is
quoted as saying: “DPL has been our primary supplier for many
years and we rely on their knowledge and expertise to produce
the innovative and dependable hand-wear demanded by our
customers.”
Packaging
For the DPL industrial range, Nugawela developed close to 40
colour-coded packs with icons that supported extensive pack
information regarding resistance and durability. We also
standardized the range through exclusively designed typography
and a clean packaging design look.”
“At the same time, we developed the DPL ‘Palm-Pro’ brand for the
medical glove range. Because we were dealing with examination
gloves, we made the packaging look contemporary but scientific,
with an almost ‘pharmaceutical’ look that was achieved through
lightly-toned pastel colours – greens, blues, violets – all to
communicate ‘peace of mind’ – that you could rule out risk when
you wore these gloves. The minimal look and feel of the
packaging, delivered through the dominance of white space,
complements this.”
“The on-pack graphics for the DPL ‘Palmrite’ range had to be
alluring and refined,” he said adding that taken together the
range was rigorously held by a common packaging design system
supporting the brand name and sub-brand.
“But taken individually, each of the packs speaks directly to
the consumer and helps to communicate the specific benefits
offered by each product. Six packs were developed for the global
market; a further three were developed specifically for the
Indian market,” he added.
The use of high-grade OPP packaging material to print the
designs, as well as the sophisticated on-pack graphics all
helped to communicate the brand promise to both consumers and
the trade, &Brand’s creative chief explained, noting that this
also helped to differentiate the packs on the shelf.
DPL’s Anandarajah says the new changes have led to DPL going out
and promoting both the company and the product.
He believes the decision to develop a corporate brand was a very
wise one. “At the end of the day nothing will give you
protection unless your product is good and keeps the customer
happy. That’s why the corporate brand is more important than the
product brand. Once that gets established the product brand
automatically follows.”
Discussing global trends and the future of the industry,
Anandarajah says the manufacturing industry is moving to Asia
from the west for many reasons – a factor that is expected to
trigger more demand for gloves. “We are beginning to see most of
the large companies shifting their factories to Asia and
bringing along good global practices like providing workers with
gloves,” he said.
Crowded markets
&Brand’s Gunawardene says that the future for Sri Lankan
companies seeking to enter global markets is in developing a
niche market and making sure ‘you stand out from the crowd’.
“Local products cannot compete on price in international markets
given the pressure on prices from Chinese products and that’s
where the DPL brand challenge came -- to show and prove DPL’s
own technical capabilities which were world class and how to
differentiate its products in the marketplace,” he said.
These, he advised, are lessons for all Sri Lankan companies
aiming a special slot in the global marketplace: “Use your
technical skills and specialized expertise and raise the bar in
marketing and branding. That’s the way to go.”
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