Alcoa has taken the custom color concept — a main- stay in the paint industry for years — and applied it to siding. Its DreamColor concept offers 700 standard colors, with custom colors also available.
Standard color selections range from barely-there ivory to deep browns and navys, with a stunning range of shades in between. Whirligig, Dream Dust, and Lettuce Alone are among the whimsical color names. Alcoa worked with the Color Marketing Group to divine emerging lifestyle trends and to look at where color is going.
But does a siding company really need 700 colors? “We can create virtually any color, but felt that we needed to give customers some concrete choices to help facilitate the decision-making process,” director of product marketing Jerry Blais says.
The company believes that its selection gives remodelers a way to differentiate themselves from the competition. It's done the trick for Susquehanna Vinyl Company in Jersey Shore, Pa. Owner Nick Canellos says that although the offbeat colors haven't overtaken the usual shades, they get a lot of attention. At a local remodeling show where the company has a booth every February, the more “off-the-wall” colors turned heads. “There was such a buzz. The other vinyl companies just had the same old, same old. We didn't do an incredible amount of sales on the colors, but we got so much attention and so many referrals.” The custom color program allows Canellos to match any existing siding, which comes in handy when re-siding just part of a house.
