Bluestar Silicones works to strengthen brand awareness

Bluestar Silicones, a subsidiary of the China National Bluestar (Group) Co Ltd, recently unveiled a brand project to strengthen its recognition worldwide.

The project, which began last year, includes brand strategy, brand positioning, a visual identity system and brand personality.

The company's CEO Frederic Jacquin said Bluestar Silicones in particular and Bluestar Group in general previously had little brand recognition outside China.

"This is a shame considering our uniqueness - a Chinese company aiming to be the best in global markets and technologies positions by putting together acquired Western companies and Chinese businesses - and with our ambition," he said.

"A strong brand is a must if we want to succeed in our specialization strategy and sell the true value of all our eforts."

The new brand system has a logo with the company name and the slogan "Delivering your potential". Jacquin said this is a modern way of "giving an association of who we are plus what we want to do for our customers".

The heart of the idea is "about people, dedicated to the silicone industry, combining expertise and different cultures".

He added that the company has an internationalized setup: it belongs to a Chinese company, uses French technology and has Norwegian support, by which he means the parent company Elkem, which was acquired by Bluestar in 2011.

"I really believe that if we are able to combine Elkem - Norwegian persistence and precision in continuous improvement - Bluestar Silicones' resilience and creativity in a faster changing environment, and the limitless ambition and energy of our Chinese brothers, we have the right teams to play for the leading role in our industry worldwide," Jacquin said.

He said the fundamentals of the world silicone market are good, as it is one of the few specialty chemical industries that grows faster than the world GDP. This is attributed to two reasons.

Firstly, silicone is "young" compared with many traditional chemical products, so business is still emerging and "the world of opportunities and innovation is yet to be discovered". Secondly, although silicone is more expensive than plastic, it is much better and, as people acquire more wealth, they want better-performing products.

The business creates "a lot of opportunities, because it is a new chemistry and because it is a chemistry based on performance", Jacquin said.

However, he noted, there is difficulty in finding a balance in the silicone business.

He explained that the business has two categories. On the one hand is the commodities segment, where technology is easy, so overcapacity and a fight for survival create low prices and difficult market conditions, especially in Asia.

On the other hand is the specialty market, where difficult technologies lead to much less competition but require more resources and energy put into research and development.

In its future development, Jacquin said, Bluestar Silicones would conquer new specialty territories or markets with high entry barriers, via innovation and premium service.

"We see good results and good performances in the specialty part of the industry, but that is also true for our big competitors. We need to manage the commodities and the specialty parts together," he said.

"Life sciences are still open to a large extent to us, such as healthcare and personal care, and silicones do provide a real benefit compared with other materials, so this should be a clear focus for us," he added. "Electronics and energy management are also a clear industry trend where we are starting a little late but the game is far from being over, especially now that we are part of the Elkem family.

"The chemistry of silicone is very complicated. You take silicon metal that transforms into oil with organic and inorganic bonds, from which you develop thousands of products. So you have to be very good at chemistry and very good at marketing and innovation," he said.

Jacquin, at 48, has spent most of his career in the marketing and sales sector until becoming CEO just about six months ago.

Despite big differences between the two roles, he said he finds his sales experience "very useful". "Every day I need to sell our company projects and profitable growth ambition to our employees, shareholders and unions.

"My CEO role is really to make sure that the whole team gets together while running as fast as possible as individuals and in the same direction.

"The customer experience is a company process. All functions are essential to give substance to what sales and marketing personnel promote and sell," he said. "Being a CEO coming from the business sector is a great opportunity to transform the company into a much more customer-oriented one, knowing that we are all customers of somebody and suppliers of somebody else, whether it's an internal or external customer."

As CEO, Jacquin has to make decisions on many things he has not mastered, so "first you have to learn, and second you have to trust your team", he said.

He said Bluestar Silicones is the smallest of the industry's top five players worldwide. "When you are the smallest, you have to pay more attention to your customers. 'Delivering your potential' means we are out there to support you, to get you bigger, stronger and richer."

Compared with "the big guys", Bluestar Silicones is more flexible. "We don't say no to the customers first," Jacquin explained. "We study and understand the benefits for the customers first, and therefore we are more agile."

At the end of September, Bluestar Silicones signed a distribution agreement with Grasim Industries Ltd, a flagship company of Aditya Birla Group in India, to enhance its marketing network in that country.

"We are considering more strategic partnerships to quickly and strongly enlarge our reach to the global market," Jacquin said. "This is the sense of our deal with Grasim in India and of last year's deal with Brenntag in Europe, as well as other distribution deals in Asia and Latin America.

"All those deals are resource-consuming and we should not dream about real impact on the profit and loss statement in two years, so the faster we start, especially when the economy is favorable in 2015, the sooner we will harvest the fruits of our eforts."

He also suggested more attention be paid to Southeast Asia, where market growth is robust, and Iran, which has a strong education system.

zhangzhao@chinadaily.com.cn