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Saint-Gobain moves up the value chain

Saint-Gobain is said to be about to introduce products in interior and exterior glass segments, and is planning to promote these new brands to architects, builders and fabricators, through a variety o…

Saint-Gobain is said to be about to introduce products in interior and exterior glass segments, and is planning to promote these new brands to architects, builders and fabricators, through a variety of means such as mass media communication (both TV/press), influencer communication direct mailing, exhibitions and tradeshows. Float glassmaker Saint-Gobain will be introducing six types of interior glass: Planilaque Evolution (lacquered glass), Masterglass (textured glass), Decorglass (patterned), Diamant (extra clear glass), Satinovo and Baldosa Grabada (matt translucent glass). According to B. Santhanam, managing director of Saint-Gobain Glass India, these products are available in various colours and thickness. “They can be toughened, bent, laminated, double-glazed and have possibilities for various other value additions,” said Santhanam. They can be used in partitions, doors, shower screens, signage and furniture, and more. Saint-Gobain is also carrying out promotional activities for exterior reflective glass for solar control such as Reflectasol Antelio and Cool-lite, under the brand Sun Ban. Reflectasol is mainly for window glazing in residences and faade-glazing in small and medium projects. Antelio, on the other hand, is for medium and large projects, and Cool-lite is the premium product in the Sun Ban range used for faade-glazing in large and mega projects. “The name Sun Ban was chosen after extensive research with end consumers, dealers, carpenters, fabricators and architects. The research was conducted by IMRB. This research was undertaken in various markets of diverse characteristics,” says a company spokesman. The name was selected based on the name sync with the category and its ability to communicate the core product value (heat cutting or solar control). The company is also setting up a new line Coater to coat glass for the Sun Ban range. “After a quite successful market-seeding programme we are setting up the new coating line inside the Chennai facility,” said Santhanam. According to Santhanam, the new facility will enable the company to deposit layers of metallic oxides on clear float glass or on body-tinted glass by magnetically enhanced cathodic sputtering under vacuum conditions. “It“s a unique coating technology because there are eight layers of coating adding only up to 100 microns and will sustain the heating process after that,” he said. The company hopes to make this facility operational soon. “We are at present doing a lot of below-the-line marketing programmes,” said Santhanam. In a bid to encourage architecture and design students, the company recently initiated a programme called Transparence. “The idea was to generate design solutions using glass as a structural and decorative element, ” he added. “Apart from students, we also periodically meet fabricators processors builders architects and carpenters. We educate them a lot about the possible roles of glass as a building material. So far we have educated around 30,000 carpenters across the country.”

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