The Emperor’s New Coating

Established in 1866 as Herberts, then purchased by DuPont in the 1990s when it was renamed as DuPont Performance Coatings, and most recently purchased by asset manager, The Carlyle Group, the newly renamed and more independent Axalta Coating Systems is a global provider of liquid and powder coatings to automotive, transportation, general industrial, and selected architectural and decorative customers. Axalta employs 12,000 people across 35 manufacturing plants and seven R&D centers around the world, it has over 1,800 patents held or pending, and revenues of more than $4 billion in 2012. The new name and identity, both realized by Futurebrand, were announced last week.An essential first step in building a fullscale brand program was creating a name that connotes front-runner status. Fir