FinishWorks and Mohawk, both speciality product brands under the RPM Industrial Coating Group’s portfolio, are leading manufacturers and distributors of industrial coatings to the wood and metal industry. Previously operated as two seperate companies, RPM Industrial Coating Group, a subsidary of RPM International Inc., decided to merge FinishWorks and Mohawk together.
The issue? How to merge the two products’ names and brands without losing recognition from their audiences. While members of the Mohawk team were attached to the Mohawk brand, which enjoyed strong name recognition thanks to its popular consumer-facing line of touchup and repair products, the name FinishWorks, on the other hand, implied a broad spectrum of quality finishing solutions, which aligned with the company’s long-term strategy.
RPM Industrial Coating Group engaged Phase 3 to conduct a thorough evaluation of the current brand names against a set of new names we developed, using a set of criteria developed in collaboration with all stakeholders. When FinishWorks was selected as the go-forward brand, there was a clear rationale and buy-in among the team for the decision. To signal a new beginning and broader vision for the brand, we embarked on a comprehensive rebranding, including identity, brand expression and key messaging for FinishWorks and Mohawk.
The Creative and Strategy teams were able to take these two different established brands and give them clarity in their positioning and architecture and breathed new life into their story and brand identities. The refreshed, innovative brand expressions sets them apart from their competition and sets them up for significant future growth.
For FinishWorks’s new brand identity, the team used the big idea “All the Way Across the Finish Line,” as their foundation. A symbolic flag made of the “F” and “W” signifying that we’ve made it, and the idea of joining together with our customers to partner on innovation.
Mohawk is the leading brand of touch up and repair products, recognized nationwide for product quality, color range and relevance, and customer application support. As a product brand now under FinishWorks, we positioned Mohawk to support its “across the finish line” promise and have similar brand associations: experience, expertise, quality, integrity, focus, completeness, value, consistency. The refreshed brand identity and expression was designed to pair nicely with the FinishWorks branding to ensure a cohesive look and feel between the family of brands.
“We began rolling out the rebrand on August 1st and were able to debut the news at IWF. The overall response has been very positive thus far, and none of what we’ve accomplished would’ve been remotely possible without you and your awesome team.” - Director of Content Marketing & Communications, RPM-ICG.
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