Toronto’s Due North Communications has won the Canadian assignment for Owens Corning following a competitive review.
The business was formally awarded on Oct. 14 following a month-long review.
Owens Corning is a global manufacturer of residential and commercial building materials under brand names such as Foamular and AttiCat. It also produces Canada’s number-one insulation product, Pink Fiberglas.
While the two parties are currently in planning for 2012, Due North president Jill King said it’s unlikely there will be any “significant departures” from Owens Corning’s previous marketing approach.
“It’s not an account that’s going to have an extensive television or out-of-home campaign,” she said. “It has a lot of pieces that need to be regularly updated, and new material that needs to created. I think what they were looking for was senior attention to all of their materials – even point-of-sale being treated as a priority.”
King said that advertising in the building materials category tends to be aimed largely at builders and contractors, although Owens Corning also produces consumer-facing education and information guides.
Other advertising strategies, such as digital and social media, will be “an area of exploration” over the next few months, said King.
“I don’t think this is a brand of revolution at all,” said King. “This is about communicating information to various targets to the degree it needs to be communicated, not trying to completely re-invent or shake up the brand… It’s going to be about ‘We’ve evolved this SKU,’ or ‘We’ve changed this product line’ so when we’re doing a catalogue or brochure we need to redirect some of the messaging.”
The Owens Corning assignment is the latest in a string of new account wins for Due North that also includes Second Cup, Metrolinx/GO and Discover Boating. “We’ve been very aggressive about new business over the last year or so,” said King.
