SITUATION: As the nation's second largest producer of construction aggregates, Martin Marietta Materials® Southwest Division was looking for additional revenue streams to offset the costs of an intense period of mergers and acquisitions in 2001.

The Houston office of Martin Marietta Materials® primarily functions as the sales and distribution location for their core product line. They provide construction aggregates to Harris County—the largest county in Texas—and the surrounding counties. The primary market for these aggregates is highway and building construction. As a strategy to increase their profits, the Southwest Division's Houston office decided that they needed to develop value-added products from their existing product lines. Martin Marietta's senior sales team needed a marketing and sales strategy to sell crushed stone as a landscape material.

In the spring of 2003, Martin Marietta Materials® approached Mindcandy Studios to help them increase the sales of their new value added product. We advised them that in order to reach their sales and marketing goals, they needed a branding solution.

CHALLENGE: Branding a commodity is an extremely challenging endeavor simply because a commodity lacks personality. Mindcandy Studios was intrigued by the challenge.

The sales strategy was simple—the branding strategy was not. Crushed stone is far superior to traditional landscape materials such as soil and bark mulch. First, it lasts longer than soil and mulch because crushed stone is not succeptible to erosion. Erosion is a huge problem in Houston because of the frequency of intense rains that are indicative of the area's climate. Second, in addition to being nearly immune to erosion, crushed stone is a more durable and versatile material. Its durability translates into a long-term, cost effective solution; since traditional bark mulch is replaced every spring.

Finally, this versatile new product is more more attractive than traditional landscape materials. It is available in a variety of colors and can be crushed into any size. It can be used by landscape professionals to create a wide range of intricate designs for their clientele. It can be used to fill beds where plants reside, or the stone can be sold as boulders to accentuate the landscaped environment.

Our goal was to motivate our customers to ask for "Mosaic Landscape Materials™" and to specify what color of stone they wanted by asking for it by its brand name. The four names we created for Mosaic's sibling brands were: "Mill Creek Rose," "Alamo Silver," "Jones Mill Jade," and "Colorado River Gold."

To strengthen the brand and to assist their sales team, Martin Marietta Materials® had a custom designed display built at their north Houston facility to show landscape designers a practical application of "Mosaic Landscape Materials™". We photographed this display for use in the direct mail marketing collateral that we created for them.

RESULTS: The "Mosaic Landscape Materials™" brand identity was influenced by Martin Marietta Materials'® parent brand identity. We used the "flying M" graphic in combination with four colored squares that represent the original four sibling brands of crushed stone. The multiple shapes and colors, when completed with a bounding box, are part of a dynamic design—which when looked at as a whole—makes a mosaic. We completed the branding process with a tagline that captures the three primary benefits of using "Mosaic Landscape Materials™"— color, creativity and longevity.