Nigel Budden, head of North American Business with Axalta Coating Systems, talks with ABRN about the company’s social media efforts, their racing partnership and company initiatives for 2014 and beyond.
ABRN: It has been a year since DuPont Performance Coatings became known as Axalta Coating Systems. How has the first year gone? Any major changes?
NB: On February 1, it was a year since we transitioned from DuPont Performance Coatings to Axalta Coating Systems. It’s been an excellent year, and I judge that by how did we go sales wise. We exceeded our own expectations. We were able to achieve quite a few things; not only did we have to get all the brands and logos out into the marketplace, but we were able to launch new products. We put a new corporate affairs organization in place. We did things that seem normal to existing companies, started a focused giving program in the community where we are located.
In regard to the products, we had to move away from some of the old product categories to new, and we established the Cromax brand of North American based products. And we launched a brand new product called Cromax Mosaic, and we brought tools out in support of our branding programs. Things like our Digital Spectrometer, which enables body shops to look at 3-D vehicle renderings, utilizing digital color technology and looking at exactly what the color will look like in 3-D perspective on different shapes on different cars, tapping into our huge library of colors. Those things are very exciting to all the people that participate at Axalta.
We have also been setting up departments that may have been lacking because of the move away from DuPont, including corporate affairs. We are ramping up our own internal network or communication pathways and external messaging to all the stakeholders, customers and suppliers. It is a really fast-moving train, but it has been a lot of fun.
ABRN: Axalta has become active on social media through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. How is Axalta planning to capitalize on these platforms going forward?
NB: Social media is something we wanted to jump into. Not only are there our normal stakeholders — customers, suppliers, etc. — but we have some other assets that we use, like Axalta Racing and we sponsor the No. 24 car of Hendrick Motorsports with Jeff Gordon. So that has a huge fan base, and we really wanted to sharpen the pencil on how we get our brand, our messaging and the things we are doing relative to that investment out into the market. So YouTube, Instagram Facebook, Twitter, all these things are an ideal way to quickly move the needle and get out there and talk to those people.
ABRN: Tell me about your partnership with Hendrick Motorsports. What does 2014 look like for Axalta Racing?
NB: At the end of 2013, we signed up for another three years with Hendrick Motorsports and that was a real milestone because it’s 22 years since we started this sponsorship. It is the longest running sponsorship with Hendrick, and I wouldn’t mind betting it is the longest running sponsorship in NASCAR. We have some exciting, strategically placed races that we are participating in through the year. We started March 9 in Las Vegas. We will be engaging all our social media activities and really ramping them up to the forefront and being able to talk to people interested in us and our brands. It is a key endeavor for us and we really want to ramp it up to the next level and get a good return.
ABRN: Axalta is now supplying Service King with its Spies Hecker line of paint nationally. Any plans for new partnerships across the MSO segment in the US?
NB: It is in the MSO sector that we are seeing a lot of consolidation in our industry. I think it is consolidating at such a pace that we want to make sure we can do the right things by our existing customers within their process. We are looking long and hard at the whole MSO category, as it is so big and there is a lot of business in that category.
ABRN: Axalta is meeting customer needs with its products, but what other value does Axalta deliver to customers?
NB: If you start with paint, there’s a lot of technology behind paint. Waterborne and low VOC are things that are relatively new and adding value in the marketplace today. Once you move beyond the paint, it gets into how you train people. We have the right training centers in the right places so it’s easy for customers to partake in learning how to utilize our products. The same goes for customer service, putting customer service centers in place so no matter where you are in the country you can talk to someone live on the phone. We’ve focused on inside sales support so customers can always talk to some from Axalta, no matter how big or small they are.
The thing we really pride ourselves on is color. There is a lot of technology in regard to the creation of color and how it is used. We have the Acquire Plus EFX, which is a very fancy, portable spectrophotometer that is able to take a photograph of a color scheme and spit out a formula on how to match it, or give the painter some ideas on how to change the hue or tone.
ABRN: Recently, Axalta invested $5 million in its Coatings Technology Center in Wilmington, Delaware. Can you tell us about the new equipment purchased and how it will impact product development?
NB: We put in a laboratory resin reactor into our technology center. It is a reactor system that enables us to not use the commercial reactors to do product development. It is a great thing for us as we look at advancing technology and being able to quickly react to customer needs. It allows us to fully explore how products are going to behave, durability, and more before we go to commercialization. It is a big investment for us.
ABRN: Axalta rolled out a new corporate look last summer. Any other major changes planned in 2014 and beyond?
NB: We’ve spent a lot of time and effort on getting out our corporate brand persona out in a very clear and meaningful manner. In 2014, we’ve got it in place, and I’d like to capitalize on it and get some normality and start to roll it out the same way day after day so people get to understand it and know it and recognize everything to do with it. We are adding on a new corporate website and getting the same look and feel through the website, and supporting what we did last year.
And back to color, with all the new things coming in color, like our SpectraMaster color design tool , which will enable people to use a appendix-type color matching tool, offering complete solid, metallic and pearl colors to anyone. Customers get a wide cross section of what the color will look like and its different versions, such as with metal flake or high or low saturation. So those things will continue to roll out under the auspice of us building our corporate identity. But let’s keep it simple this year. We’ve got an exciting business to run and we’ve got lots of customers to servie and it would be really neat if every one of our customers in North America, which includes USA and Canada, were able to just, at a glance, see our new logo or brand identities, instantly recognize it and know what it stands for. So we’ll be looking very hard at that and delivering the value beyond the paint.
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