Corporate Branding
North American Expansion
Challenge
When Comex, Mexico’s leading architectural paint company, acquired PPI, a U.S. holding company with five professionally focused regional brands in the U.S. and Canada, the result was a disparate brand portfolio that made it difficult for the company to leverage its strengths, project its full capabilities and achieve visibility among attractive national customer segments. MBLM, a longtime branding partner of Comex in Mexico, was charged with helping the company define the branding strategy that would be most effective in integrating the acquisition and aligning its businesses to build its reputation throughout North America. We completed a diagnostic that uncovered many compelling similarities across the acquired regional companies, providing an opportunity to create a unifying value proposition with relevance throughout the group. The Comex Group brand was created to connect the companies through a single group umbrella and leverage Comex’s equity as the leading paint brand in Mexico. The acquired regional brands were aligned under a common value proposition, brand architecture, visual identity system and retail store experience, which created a unified means of expressing the group-wide value proposition and promise.
Results
The Comex Group is now the fourth-largest architectural paint company in North America. In recent years, the company has launched the Comex Industrial product line throughout North America, and it has also made a number of strategic acquisitions in Canada to expand its distribution to new geographies. MBLM continues its partnership with Comex today, providing ongoing branding assistance as the company pursues a strategy of growth and innovation across North America.