Decorating leader Dulux paints, part of leading international paint business - ICI Paints, has opened another Dulux Decorator Centre retail outlet (DDC) in Abu Dhabi on Murur Road. The branch comes in addition to six other DDC’s located in Dubai, Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah.
The first of its kind in the UAE, the Dulux Decorator Centre offers the widest choice of decorating solutions and services, with a number of unique services exclusive to Dulux including free colour consultation and one of the largest colour portfolios.
Customers can walk in with their choice of curtain fabric, wallpaper, tile, paint or upholstery, and automatically match the nearest Dulux shade using their colour scanning device. Dulux’s own advanced computerised tinting system will also allow customers to mix and match any of 20,000 colours available in any shade imaginable.
“The Dulux Decorator Centres are a distinctive competitive advantage in this market. While other paint brands focus on the wholesale and construction market, Dulux in the UAE has an additional focus on the growing ‘Buy-It-Yourself” (BIY) and ‘Do-It-Yourself’ (DIY) segments of the market,” said Philip Mathew, General Manager, Al Gurg Leigh’s Paints, manufacturer and distributor of Dulux in the UAE.
“Recently, Emaar Properties handed over their 10,000th property in UAE and it is estimated that about 60 per cent of the occupants are expats. This has resulted in an exponential growth in the DIY market in the UAE where the Europeans and other Arab expats are more inclined towards DIY solutions,” adds Mathew.
The Dulux Decorator Centre (DDC) concept is a one-stop shop for transforming a home into a lifestyle statement. At each DDC a trained in-house colour consultant is on hand to offer inspiration and colour advice based on personal requirements and individual personality.
“Colour, like people, can have different characteristics and personalities: such as adventurous, bold, reserved, shy or warm. Colour consultants use Dulux’s own unique ‘Language of Colour’ tool to profile personality and match the appropriate colour type to a person. Dulux’s MousePainterTM software is also used to illustrate how colours and decorating will appear even before applying the paint shade in the rooms”, explains Mathew.
All DDC’s also feature ‘virtual room sets’ to help customers visualise various colour combinations as well as touch-and-feel the various designer effects created on the walls. DDC can offer to source professional decorator trained by Dulux to complete decorating jobs.
In the Middle East, ICI Dulux is manufactured in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the UAE. Dulux is distributed to Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
ICI Dulux is the leading international paints business with a wide geographic spread. ICI Dulux spends over AED200 million annually on research and development worldwide and 35 per cent of its business is represented by new products introduced over the past five years.
Decorative and protective coatings for the interior and exterior of buildings account for half of the world’s consumption of paint. The decorative market makes up almost 90 per cent of ICI Dulux turnover.
In 2004, ICI Dulux achieved sales of over AED165 million in the Middle East and projects sales growth to reach approximately AED750 million by 2010. The business is headquartered in the UK and operates 49 manufacturing sites in 25 countries, selling in more than 120 countries.
ICI produces 1.1 billion litres of paint each year, which is enough paint to cover 2.8 million football pitches or paint every house in Los Angeles, Beijing and London combined, with some to spare.
The Abu Dhabi Dulux’s decorator centre is located on Murur Road near Al Falah plaza, and is open from 8am-1pm and 4:30pm-7:30pm Saturday to Thursday.
Including the new centre in Abu Dhabi, there are now seven exclusive Dulux Decorator Centre’s in the UAE. In Dubai, the centres are located in Satwa by the Iranian Hospital, and in the Speedex hardware store on Sheikh Zayed Road. There are two centres in Sharjah by the BMW roundabout and at Al Gurg Leigh’s Paint’s head office in Industrial Area 13. In Fujairah their store is located inside the Al Yousef building material showroom and in Ras Al Khaimah inside CVP building material showroom.
Notes to the Editor:
Al Gurg Leigh’s Paints was established in the Emirate of Sharjah in 1988 to manufacture a wide range of Industrial and Decorative Coatings. The Protective Coatings for the Industrial, Marine and Petrochemical Industry including Coatings for Fire Protection are manufactured under licence from Leigh’s Paints, UK while high quality Dulux decorative paints are manufactured under licence from ICI Paints, UK. AGLP manufactures and distributes the full range of paints under the Leigh’s, Dulux and Oasis Brands.
In addition, Al Gurg Leigh’s Paints operates a regional technical laboratory equipped with the latest R&D and analysis equipment providing a high degree of technical commitment to the region. Al Gurg Leigh’s Paints is a member of the Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group of Companies.
The Easa Saleh Al Gurg (ESAG) Group was founded by the Chairman of the Group and the UAE’s ambassador to the UK, H.E Easa Saleh Al Gurg CBE, in 1960. Today the group is associated with over 20 brands such as British American Tobacco, Unilever, Dunlop, Siemens, United Colors of Benetton, and Burmah Castrol.
