Wilmington, DL, August 21, 2006--If you're noticing the DuPont brand name at retailers like Lowe's, Home Depot or Target lately, it's all part of DuPont's plan to put the familiar red oval logo on more products sold directly to consumers, according to Asbury Park Press.
In the last three years, DuPont, which sells most of its products to industrial users or companies that use them as components for their own products, has expanded its consumer product offerings.
It has launched such consumer products as vinyl flooring, kitchen water filters, pool and spa chemicals and car-cleaning products.
"It's about leveraging our brand more broadly with consumers," says Ellen Kullman, the DuPont executive vice president in charge of marketing and sales, and head of the company's safety & protection and coatings & color technologies platforms.
Under Kullman's direction, DuPont started a consumer products group in 2005 to develop consumer offerings with the DuPont brand and push them out into the marketplace. The group focuses on products associated with the company's core strengths of science and innovation, Kullman said.
DuPont has long been known for making things that improved other companies' products. Cookware manufacturers use DuPont's Teflon nonstick coatings. DuPont's Nylon and Lycra fibers, part of the Invista textiles and interiors business it sold to Koch Industries in 2004, are used by a host of clothing makers.
But DuPont also had a storied history of making its own products for the consumer market, such as Zerex antifreeze, Lucite house paint and Rain Dance car wax. The company had long since sold off those products, but Kullman and other company executives, including Charles O. Holliday Jr., DuPont's chairman and chief executive, were convinced consumers still placed stock in DuPont's brand.
DuPont examined more than 100 product categories, looking for areas "where the DuPont brand name has value," Kullman said. "We want people when they see DuPont products to say, "That makes sense.' "
A DuPont-branded line of cosmetics or pet food wouldn't resonate with shoppers, she said. But a driveway sealant made with a DuPont polymer does, as did the development of a line of DuPont products for cleaning and maintaining backyard pools and hot tubs.
DuPont had been selling pool chemicals to other manufacturers for years, so it wasn't much of a stretch to sell its own line of easy-to-use chemicals directly to consumers, Kullman said.
The company settled on three key areas where products carrying the DuPont brand name made the most sense:
Outdoor living, where the offerings include pool and spa products, weed-control blankets and long-lasting rubber mulch for gardening.
Surface solutions, such as car-care products and vinyl and laminate flooring.
Home and safety products, such as air and water filters and smoke alarms.
Lowe's carries a variety of DuPont products, including pool and spa products, vinyl flooring and gardening products. Home Depot sells DuPont's Real Touch Elite laminate flooring, and Wal-Mart sells DuPont air and water filters.
DuPont is resisting the temptation to extend its brand beyond the three areas it has identified, determined instead to become a brand leader in these categories, said Nils Gustavsson, global business leader for the consumer products group.
