When one of Britain’s biggest and most respected paint brands decided to engage the power of fleet livery to promote its interests, the company turned to one of the UK’s longest established sign companies…
It was a very powerful sign of the awareness that a popular paint brand achieved when the Old English Sheepdog breed became known for a time as ‘Dulux Dogs.’
The brand’s original mascot was called Dash and those who remember say he belonged to the producer of TV advertising Dulux was developing in the 60s. Dash kept rushing the film stage to play with the kids who featured in the advertising and the creatives preferred his scenes to the scripted ones. History was made. Twice. Dulux was also the first paints brand to advertise on broadcast TV.
Dulux is of course much more than the product that’s in the can. The brand carries with it a promise of quality and of technical leadership in the field of pigments and paints. It’s a division of Akzo Nobel and it rubs shoulders with other very well-known products in the trade or that feature on the garage shelves of DIY enthusiasts and those who reluctantly take up the brush.
The power or the Dulux brand and its products are as recognised in professional circles as they are to those with domestic interests. Architects and specifiers can access Dulux tools that help them make sense of colour and products. Contractors too can rely on deep levels of technical support from Dulux. Decorators know that what’s delivered to site in the can is more than the product itself, it’s the very essence of the Dulux brand, its promise, and all the care that it embodies.
Dulux operates a fleet of some 170 vehicle that are used to deliver paint where and when its needed by professional customers in the UK. The vehicles, and the customer-driven business objectives that underpin the service they extend are further elements of the Dulux brand. So then, is the fleet’s livery.
Dulux turned to Southampton UK based Zillwoods, one of the country’s longest established sign companies, for the latest version of its fleet livery. Zillwoods and Dulux are no strangers to each other, Zillwoods having provided fleet livery, signs and graphics supporting Dulux and its brand for many years.
Zillwoods’ roots go back even further than those Dulux itself can claim. The company was founded in 1887. That’s some time before sign making computers, inkjet printers and today’s other tech was even a glimmer. There was still a need for signing and promotion though and one ‘Pop’ Zillwoods spotted the opportunity and had the hands and talents needed to do the job. Zillwoods’ earliest work was hand painting signs promoting films for cinemas in the locality.
Hand-painted signage promoting films in cinemas? There’s a medium and an art form that’s still practiced to this day despite the rise of digital print in some of the world’s markets.
Pop’s sons entered the business soon after its founding and, at one time, the company employed five sign-writers, making it a heavyweight in its field. Zillwoods never wanted for a job to do. Pop’s ‘quality first’ ethics, and the talents needed to back it up, ensured that the business prospered.
Zillwoods was there in the vanguard of companies that made the very most of the new opportunities that accompanied the advent of the computer age, and its fortunes got another boost as it moved screen printed production aside and better served its customers with computer-generated output - all of it with that ‘Zillwoods’’ touch of class. Zillwoods was an early adopter of computerised routers too. One of the very first UK Pacer sites.
Today, Zillwoods wants for nothing in terms of production tools and has a skilled and deeply creative team. ‘Quality first’ still drives the company, though it’s now vested in the hands of Barry Pearce, a sign industry pioneer himself.
The Zillwoods’ formula clearly appeals to Dulux. Its new livery is founded on a design that gives the printing and application team producing and delivering it nowhere to hide from quality issues. That’s not a problem.
Zillwoods turned to MetaWrap™ MD-X and its matching MG-X Laminate to produce the Dulux livery. The design is a riot of colour, and the MD-X acquits itself brilliantly. Print quality is good enough for Zillwoods - in other words, pixel perfect.
170 vehicles is a lot to wrap. Thankfully the skilled hands needed are all under the roof at Zillwoods and they’ve done nothing less than the top-quality job Zillwoods expects of itself and that the Dulux brand demand. The MD-X was declared ‘very cooperative and easy to apply.’ Metamark is delighted to hear that.
The finished job is superb. The vehicles are distinctive and radiate the very essence of the Dulux Brand. It’s an object exercise in the potency of fleet livery executed brilliantly by Zillwoods. It confers value on every other element of promotional collateral that Dulux employs in its mix.
Hardly surprising when you’ve had since 1887 to perfect your art.
