Hasta La Creative!

Just like its trademark chameleon can change colors, Valspar has shown how consumer marketing can change a company.

Valspar made plenty of history since it began manufacturing spar varnish for masts of tall wooden ships in 1806, then moved into industrial coatings in the 1930s to help make everything from Coca-Cola cans to Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of Saint Louis possible. But its transformation into a consumer brand may be one of history’s better examples of how marketing can reshape a company.

In 2007, just before the onset of the deepest recession in generations, Valspar was largely unknown to consumers. It was then that management decided to shift from selling industrial coatings and manufacturing private-label paint for such retailers as Lowe’s to building a consumer brand. Since then, its stock has soared 180%, and Valspar research shows the brand has risen to become the No. 2 U.S. paint brand by purchase intent, behind only Behr. By this internal measure, it’s leapfrogged century-plus-old brands Sherwin Williams, Glidden, Dutch Boy and Benjamin Moore.

Continue reading at AdAge.com