SurfacePrep

SurfacePrep is the largest national network of regional distributors of high-quality abrasive products, specialty ceramics and surface finishing equipment.

In 2014 Frontenac Company acquired GNAP, a leader in the distribution of industrial abrasives, with the strategy to use GNAP as a platform to do a national rollup in the category.

In 2018 GNAP was sold to Center Oak Partners, whose investment thesis featured the creation of a national brand and marketing infrastructure to accelerate the integration and create brand equity.

MonogramGroup was retained to develop a research-based, bespoke brand strategy. Once approved, we created a new brand with a three-part architecture to accommodate local market issues that would impact each local branch’s adoption of the brand. Our content and toolkit development covered a full spectrum, from a family of logos and brand design system to a complex website, marketing templates, photography and video assets.

In February 2024, CenterOak completed the sale of its majority interest to Nautic Partners. Mike Currie, CEO of SurfacePrep, acknowledged the branding strategy's role in the company's exit. He commented, "Together, we converted 15 local brands to the single unified ‘SurfacePrep’ name operating under the ‘One SurfacePrep’ model, tripled our salesforce and broadened our service and product offerings."

SurfacePrep Brand Logo
Visual of SurfacePrep Brand Architecture.
Guide for SurfacePrep brand Identity
(Left) Photo Close-Up of SurfacePrep sweater; (Right) Photo Close-Up of SurfacePrep Baseball Hat.
Collage of Photos from SurfacePrep Presentation.
Four SurfacePrep Action Shots (TopLeft) SurfacePrep Employees taking notes on duty; (TopRight) multiple texture examples; (BottomLeft) Active tool creating sparks off of metal its grinding against; (BottomRight) Pile of Grains in dark with natural light shining on it.
Four SurfacePrep Action Shots (TopLeft) Pink Rock; (TopRight) woman and man writing; (BottomLeft) Man looking throug window at metal with safety gasses; (BottomRight) Man in full safety Suit holding hose aimed at frame of a fire hydrant.

Website

The SurfacePrep website featured over 200 pages spanning their entire product portfolio, 28 unique location pages, and a variety of industry and solution-specific pages. We put a heavy emphasis on SEO, and established a product hierarchy compatible with future plans to include e-commerce.

Photo of SurfacePrep Site map
Collage of SurfacePrep webpages.

You might also like: