“Orange is not just a colour, it’s an attitude”: Dulinda

Ikon marketing started off as a small-time company with just a handful of members; today the digital media branding company has achieved remarkable feats in the respective fields. The company has worked with many leading brands in recent times; after its successful venture the management decided to give the brand a new facelift. Founder Dulinda Perera shared his story of how the company evolved, his team of two to 30 and what’s in store for Ikon. Following are excerpts:

Q: Ikon had a successful start; how has it progressed since then? 

 It’s been an amazing 18 months for all of us at Ikon! From just two we have grown into a team of 30 individuals providing full-scale digital media services to all our clients. Our clientele has grown from zero to a diverse range where we handle large multi-nationals to premier foreign brands who will be making their appearance in Sri Lanka in the near future. From simply social media branding we have moved onto phases such as web and application development, full-stack lead development, PR branding and digital audits enabling us to offer a wide ray of services to our clients. For a bunch of youngsters within the age gap of 19-23, I would say we are doing pretty well for now!

Q: Can you tell us about the brand’s new approach?

Well, we strongly believe in change, for nothing in this world is static or immune to change. It is through this change we sustain and provide a better and profound service to our clients. Ikon was all about re-writing the traditional marketing norms and doing things our way. Thus we wanted to break free and initiate a working culture where our employees can be rebels in their own ways. To be crazy enough so that they may find what it takes to break away the traditions that embrace Sri Lankan marketing.

Q: What’s with the re-branding?

The re-branding caused much traction even than we initially bargained for. It was a complicated procedure both internally and externally driven by Senuri Rupasinghe, Shawn Moses, Chamaka Ranasinghe and Samila Imbulana who have travelled to the very extreme of creating curiosity about what’s happening to Ikon with all the orange. We received overwhelming engagement from all corners of our audience with people inquiring us from what this entire thing was. The campaign sustained for more than two months allowing us to carefully reveal what it truly meant. It’s an amazing feeling as if you were born again!

Q: The reason behind the re-branding?

The re-branding allowed us to initiate a change in how we do things at Ikon. It is not a mere change of colours or the logo but a massive internal and external cultural change. We needed a dramatic change from being predominantly formal to being a rebel who dared to do the unthinkable. Orange is not just a colour, but our attitude. Orange represents the newborn rebellious and challenge-seeking Ikon who would dare venture in pathways that no one else would have. The momentum spurred by the entire re-branding campaign allowed us to brush up, re-visit our mistakes and correct them and to come through much bigger and better. Furthermore, Ikon will diversify into some related industries as well. We are working on those fronts and hopefully, we would have some great news by the beginning of 2019.

Q: With a new avatar, what can we expect from the Ikon team?

Ikon has changed. We will no more feed to the traditional norms but will do things in a better and bigger fashion which will allow us to take our clients to explore new horizons. Ikon will further play a bigger role in engaging and inspiring entrepreneurs to do more and to do great out there in the corporate world! We no longer make building businesses our prime concern. We empower who builds businesses. At Ikon, our biggest asset is the 30 amazing individuals who strive day in and day out to make your entity look better!