Norton Abrasives Launches Global Brand Standards

The standards are intended to unify worldwide branding efforts for the brand and sub-brands for quicker association to cutting, grinding, sanding and polishing applications.

Norton Abrasives (Worcester, MA), a brand of Saint-Gobain Abrasives, the world’s largest manufacturer of abrasives, has announced the introduction of a new global Norton brand standards program. The standards will unify branding efforts worldwide to facilitate a cohesive, impactful image for the Norton brand and Norton sub-brands, for quicker association to the brand assets and the best products for cutting, grinding, sanding and polishing applications.

The new global identity program includes the Norton parallelogram logo that is now endorsed with the Saint-Gobain parent organization and a structure that ties the Norton brand with all of the technology-leading sub brands, including Norton Quantum, Norton Blaze and Norton Paradigm.

“With the changing face of communication, it is imperative that we ensure every touch point with our brand is consistent so as we reach people globally, the brand is uniformly identifiable,” said David Long, the director of marketing and strategy at Norton Abrasives. “As the industry leader, it is important to maintain this cohesive strategy so that our customers immediately associate our brand with the high level of product performance and technical expertise they are familiar with, no matter where they are located. With our new brand standards, we have a clear strategy on how we visually present ourselves in our literature, web activities, media, advertising, packaging and all other marketing collateral.”

In the new standards, Norton Abrasives is complementing their most valuable visual asset, the Norton brand logo, with the introduction of the Norton “Mark”. The Mark is an iconic element that ties the shape of the Norton logo parallelogram with a contemporary graphic treatment to provide a quick brand reference for packaging, promotional wear, and websites/apps. “The Norton “Mark” will be used as an additional symbol of our guarantee to deliver leading innovation, engineering and service to the broad spectrum of end users of our abrasive products. This program will roll out globally throughout 2013,” according to Long.

Recently, at IMTS in September 2012, Norton Abrasives debuted an Abrasives App that includes grinding and coolant calculators as well as product selection tools. The app, available through the App Store (iOS) and Google Play (Android), displays the Mark as the icon and welcome page; one example of how Norton Abrasives extends their technology reach not only via product development, but also through communications and digital mediums.

Norton is a brand of Saint-Gobain. Norton Abrasives is the world’s leading manufacturer of a wide array of abrasive products. For applications ranging from rapid stock removal to precision finishing in all industries, products are offered in Best, Better and Good performance/ price tiers for meeting the needs of all end users.

With more than 1,000 subsidiaries in 64 countries, Saint-Gobain is the world’s largest manufacturer and distributor of building materials, and a leader in the production of high performance materials, glass containers and abrasives. Founded in 1665 and headquartered in Paris, Saint-Gobain had worldwide sales of $58.6 billion in 2011 and employs approximately 195,000 people.

In the United States and Canada, Saint-Gobain employs approximately 19,000 people, and had sales of $7.7 billion in 2011. The company has over 265 locations throughout North America. www.nortonabrasives.com