In an era of big-box and discount stores, Dunn Lumber stands apart, having built a legacy on trust, quality, and values like hard work and honesty. In 2013, as a new generation of consumers became their customers, Dunn Lumber saw the opportunity to communicate their values and vision as differentiators from their competitors. They asked Belief Agency to help them determine how best to tell their story—their legacy—to this new audience.
Client
Dunn Lumber
Scope of Services
Agency of Record Belief Process Brand Identity Content Development Design Digital Distribution Film
Dunn Lumber is a generational company building trust that lasts generations. In a time when only three percent of family-owned businesses survive past the third generation, Dunn Lumber is currently seeing its fifth generation of Dunn family members rise into leadership within the company. Statistically, the company was in trouble; it’s rare to have a company like Dunn Lumber still in business today. Somehow, they’ve been able to survive—why? According to Dunn Lumber’s CEO/president (a fourth-generation Dunn family member) Mike Dunn, “Trust is hard to gain and easy to lose.” So, Dunn Lumber focuses on three areas to ensure trust is being built: providing customers with trusted advice, quality materials, and steady service.
The only way to bring history to life is to step back in time, so we scoured family albums and historical archives to memorialize the Dunn story in a modern medium.
Legacy of Trust
On day one, we worked to solidify the company’s beliefs and values and figure out how to communicate them clearly to the team. Over the past decade as the company grew, fewer employees had a direct relationship with a member of the Dunn family—and with it, a firsthand understanding of how the family’s values and traditions became so interwoven with the company’s. It was important to communicate this culture to the next generation of employees, so Dunn Lumber asked Belief Agency to create an internal film to communicate its core values to the staff.
Dunn Lumber believes in the concept of the true win-win; that the win-win is not only possible in some interactions between a company and its customers, but in every interaction. At Dunn Lumber, a true win-win is achieved when both the employee and customer leave an interaction feeling a sense of fulfillment from the transaction. The employee feels they were equipped to do their job well, and the customer feels they received the help they needed and the quality of service they deserved.
We developed a film that communicated the culture to employees. It made such an impact on the staff that Dunn Lumber decided to make it public-facing. Today, it’s known as the “Legacy of Trust” film.
The “Danny Dunn” mascot had been around since the 1940s. During the rebranding process, we gave Danny a friendlier face to align with the brand’s true story.
Rebrand
After completing the film we had a better understanding of the Dunn Lumber brand, which led us to suggest a refresh of the brand’s visual identity. Our task was to create visual branding that would unify the Dunn Lumber messaging. Our goal was to make the brand more consistent, digitally versatile, and friendly.
“Danny Dunn” was the existing Dunn Lumber mascot, who had appeared alongside the company in various iterations since the 1940s. The existing version appeared sad or angry, which didn’t represent the friendliness of actual people we were interacting with day-to-day. Dunn Lumber wanted to make Danny feel more approachable without erasing his history and starting from scratch.
“Working with Belief was a powerful experience of rediscovering the core of who we are, where we came from and why we do what we do with such unreserved passion."
Mike Dunn | President, Dunn Lumber
We infused Dunn’s bright, friendly personality into product packaging by putting “Danny” front and center.
We designed various original patterns, murals, merchandise, and packaging.
