Dulux Duco presented the perfect opportunity to give an existing consumer brand a whole new lease on life. REX was tasked with rejuvenating the packaging of this iconic brand, but in typical REX style, the project quickly evolved beyond the surface of pack design.
REX strongly believes that packaging plays a crucial role in the marketing mix and is the most concentrated brand experience available to a marketer. It encapsulates the entire brand in a space that is often smaller than a shoe-box, but that has the most intimate connection with a consumer.
In a bid to make the most of the small space on the Duco can, REX delved into the Duco brand – and uncovered an insight that not only formed the core of the packaging solution, but that now sits at the heart of the brand itself.
Dulux Duco is the ‘Hoover’ of the spray-paint sector. The brand has become a verb, but the problem is that the verb had very specific connotations – connotations that were out of line with actual product usage.
Over the years, Duco had become a generic term for spray-painting – but mainly in an industrial sense, in a garage, in the hands of a mechanic and DIY-man. Upon investigation, REX discovered that the market has evolved beyond this perception, and that the current – and future potential – lay in homes, in the hands of creative women who were using Duco for a wide variety of creative and eclectic applications. And, thanks to the rapid growth in the home décor market, there is huge growth opportunity for the brand in this sector.
In a bid to create a pack that was more in-touch with this new market, REX veered away from the functional and solutions-oriented packaging that is typical of the DIY market, and instead created a pack that embraces creativity and invites imagination.
The idea was not to tell people what to do with Duco – because creativity will dictate that people do different things with it – but rather to allow the brand to ooze an energy that would attract consumers to it. This is in line with REX’s overriding belief that branding only works when it pulls, instead of pushes.
The result is vibrant pack that not only stands out among its functional shelf-mates, but that also invites consumers to create their own meaning of the verb ‘duco’, taking the brand out of the garage and integrating it with modern lifestyles.
