PPG Refinish

PPG has announced its lineup of celebrities who will appear during the 2010 SEMA show in Las Vegas at the Las Vegas Convention Center November 2–5. Celebrity painters Gene Winfield, Charley Hutton, and Dave and Jody Perewitz will all be in attendance at the PPG indoor (booth #24813) and outdoor (Silver Lot #09) exhibits. All four will be on hand to discuss their painting techniques with PPG Vibrance Collection custom finishes and Envirobase High Performance waterborne coatings. They will also be available to sign autographs.

Gene Winfield has been working on cars for more than 60 years and is well known for his custom creations and trademark “blended” paint jobs. His car concepts have been featured on a number of television shows including “Star Trek” and “Get Smart” and movies such as “Blade Runner,” “Robocop,” “Back to the Future,” and “The Last Starfighter.” His work has earned him the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster award three times, the NHRA’s Wally lifetime achievement award, and induction into several custom car halls of fame. Currently Winfield travels the world customizing cars for select customers.

Charley Hutton has received a number of prominent honors during his career. His talents have been recognized with two Ridler Awards, several Street Rod of the Year and Custom Rod of the Year awards as well as an America’s Most Beautiful Roadster award. He attained television fame and national exposure through the Discovery Channel’s “American Hot Rod” show, on Hot Rod TV, and on The Learning Channel’s “Overhaulin’.” He works out of his shop in Nampa, Idaho, Charley Hutton’s Color Studio, where he exclusively uses PPG Automotive Refinish products.

Dave Perewitz, the “King of Flames,” is one of America’s most popular motorcycle builders and customizers and a devotee of PPG products. Operating from his shop, Perewitz Cycle Fabrication, in Bridgewater, Mass., he is known for his one-of-a-kind creations and signature flame designs. Perewitz competed in two Biker Build-Offs on The Discovery Channel and recently built a custom car with Street Rodder magazine and Factory Five Racing, creating an orange FFR ’33 street rod. His daughter Jody, a key part of the Perewitz team, has been active in building bikes and designs all the Perewitz brand merchandise. She is now taking after her father and painting bikes in her own distinctive Perewitz style.

PPG Automotive Refinish lent its support to Speedway Children’s Charities’ (SCC) Track Walk fund-raiser for their newest chapter in New Hampshire at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, during a recent NASCAR racing weekend. The event drew 400 participants who paid up to $35 each for the privilege – and fun – of walking the 1.05-mile track. The “walkers” and PPG raised a total of $10,000 for SCC.

“The Track Walk was one of our first big events since our local group was formed last January,” said Cheryl LaPrade, executive director of the SCC’s New Hampshire Motor Speedway chapter. “We got tremendous encouragement and assistance from PPG. Their help made the day for us and guaranteed the Walk was a great success.”

“We fully support SCC and we do it with great pleasure,” said PPG director of business development Bill Shaw. “This is a highly motivated group that provides critical funding for organizations that address the educational, medical, social and financial needs of children. It’s rewarding for all of us to know that the effort we put forth and the resources we provide help SCC make a real difference in their local communities.”

The Track Walk took place Saturday evening after two NASCAR races. Adults and children walking the track were joined by NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Joe Nemechek. Emceeing the event was Laura Boyce, popular DJ of New England’s “The Morning Buzz” radio show. SCC’s national executive director Maj. Gen. Thomas Sadler and Fox Sports NASCAR reporter Dick Berggren addressed the crowd and walked the track. Also participating in the Walk were all 10 members of the Marshall Family, recipients of a new home from the television show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”

SCC, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, was founded in 1982 by Bruton Smith, chairman of Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (SMI) and Sonic Automotive, in honor of Bruton Cameron Smith, his son, who died at a young age. Smith was passionate about helping children in need and established SCC chapters around his SMI race tracks to support local charities. Each of the organization’s eight chapters determines the needs of its surrounding communities and helps fund non-profit organizations that directly address the challenges children face as a result of broken homes, learning disabilities and illness. SCC has funded thousands of organizations through generous grants to ensure children in need are given the tools to build a better, brighter and healthy future.

MVP ACCELERATED SALES & MARKETING SYSTEMS COLLISION CENTER WORKSHOP GEARED TO A CHANGING MARKETPLACE

Responding to today’s fast-paced, changing marketplace – where consumers are increasingly making purchase decisions based on recommendations found on Facebook and Yelp – PPG’s MVP Business Solutions group has introduced a new, dynamic training course to assist collision centers in maximizing sales opportunities in the modern business climate. Entitled “MVP Accelerated Sales and Marketing Systems,” the 2-day workshop covers a wide range of topics covering four primary market segments: the consumer, insurance DRP, insurance agent, and non-traditional media.

“Given this highly-competitive environment, today’s collision center can no longer totally depend on traditional ways of reaching and selling to their customer base,” said Norm Angrove, senior manager of value programs for PPG. “The objective of this course is to provide attendees with a hands-on look at innovative, results-driven strategies and tools for modernizing their marketing and sales efforts.”

Beginning with an overview of industry trends, the workshop provides real-world instruction for developing an effective marketing and sales plan using new tools and methodology. Another training component provides insight into today’s multi-generations and how their unique preferences must guide the collision shop’s marketing approach. Attendees also are schooled on how to compose a concise, carefully-planned positioning statement of the business, and the “ins and outs” of leveraging customer testimonials to market the business.

“In this ‘brave new world’ of communications, this workshop devotes considerable attention to social media, such as Blogger, Facebook, Yelp and other social media opportunities,” said Angrove. “The aim is to give shops new skills and methods for influencing prospects and driving traffic to their door utilizing these new communication tools.”

The MVP marketing course was extensively tested and refined by MVP experts before being incorporated into the Business Development training series. According to PPG, response to a pilot seminar was overwhelmingly positive.

“We have been propelled as a team to the next level of marketing,” said David Mulder, president of Collision Centers of America, and one of the pilot course participants. “The content of the seminar was delivered in a very digestible way with a challenge to use all our employees as marketers and penetrating the markets in our communities with the expanded knowledge.”

The workshop is available to PPG collision center customers in a two-day course or a one-day condensed format that allows participants to customize the course and select the topics most important to them.

As one of 15 courses in the MVP Business Development Series, Accelerated Sales and Marketing Systems is the first of three new courses to be introduced this year by PPG. The other two classes are “Evolution of Selling” which will provide a practical, professional consultative selling process, and “Fundamentals of Estimating,” which will cover contemporary estimating trends, techniques and practices for entry-level estimators.

PPG’s MVP Business Solutions offers the industry’s most widely-attended training programs for helping collision centers learn practical, proven ways to improve their process improvement and succeed in a highly-competitive marketplace.

For more information about PPG MVP Business Solutions, contact your PPG territory manager, email MVPmailbox@ppg.com or visit www.ppgmvp.com.

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For further information please contact:

Norm Angrove

angrove@ppg.com

905/665-2282

PPG Automotive Refinish, 2301 Royal Windsor Drive, Mississauga, Ontario L5J 1K5