Since our establishment back in 2004, International Dunnage has become one of the leading players in the dunnage airbag market with uncompromising commitment to provide the best and most cost-effective load protection solutions globally. The safety and security of cargo on board has been our utmost priority.
Our Group endeavors to offer high quality products packaged with superior service and acts socially responsible to create value, efficiency, and sustainability to have a safer world. Key to our strategy has always been creating and maintaining a dynamic brand and a great team which reflect our passion about the kind of Company we have built based on our core values and principles: integrity, value creation, excellence, and social responsibility. We also want to make sure that we have an open and efficient communication with our stakeholders. We want our communication strategy to be efficient, fun, consistent and reliable.
Over the last year, we have been working hard to bolster our communication channels and to develop tools and resources designed to assist and reflect our values, strategies, and mission. We set our target to reach out to all our stakeholders rather than only focusing on our customers. Within this context, we got involved in many social responsibility projects. In 2021, we launched a social responsibility project during which children between the ages of 5 to 10 years painted their favorite characters on our dunnage air bags and their valuable art works were exhibited in a beautiful virtual exhibition. The proceeds of the exhibition were transferred to a foundation to support the educational needs of children. We then launched another project to integrate the graffiti art into our dunnage airbags to present how we master the “art” of manufacturing. We wanted to emphasize that our dunnage airbags are always “produced to excellence and mastered into art”! We had a motto contest among our employees where the winning motto was: “Inspiring creativity in our everyday world!”
For our graffiti artist, we created different themes and scenarios to show how our dunnage bags add value into our daily lives. While creating these scenarios, we decided to have a mascot which would help us to convey our messages via illustrations. We wanted to communicate with a larger audience in a fun way and bring more life and light into the way we create value-added for our community and for our industry. That’s how the idea of IDude was born.
In the creation of IDude, we worked with a young and talented character designer: Naci Akpinar. The very first question we asked ourselves was about the kind of a mascot we wanted to create. Would it be a human mascot, animal mascot or object mascot? This was easy to answer. We all imagined an object mascot that resembles our dunnage airbags, that was instantly recognizable and was easy to remember. We also wanted a mascot with arms and legs so that it can give more life to the scenarios we create.
Naci came up with different sketches so that he can understand the ideal mascot that we had in our minds. His first drawings were mainly concentrated on a friendly guy with a big dunnage bag-shaped head!
We decided to name our mascot IDude. The name was supposed to include the initials of our Company, International Dunnage, and would sound friendly and sympathetic. After discussing names such as IDBuddy, IDBud etc., IDude sounded right on spot. The design, on the other hand, needed further adjustments and personality to become our brand ambassador.
To give IDude his final look, we tried to answer many questions towards further personalization. Some of the team members suggested to dress him up like logistic personnel, others liked a friendly customer rep look. The winning idea was to dress him up like a superhero! At the end, he was the one who protects all the cargo from damages and evil risks of transportation in the horizon.
After experimenting with different sketches, Naci and our creative team finally settled on the dunnage bag-headed guy with rather long arms and long legs. The personality of our mascot was supposed to be strong and friendly (Just like how we are!). The characteristics, our team wanted to see in our mascot were: Hero – Sympathetic- Fun – Friendly – Strong- Charismatic- Helpful- Likeable!
As a final touch, in line with the characteristics and key messages to be delivered by our mascot, we decided to introduce STRONG muscled arms to reflect our strength, a HERO-like dress to reflect our mission to make a difference and a PLEASENT face to reflect our customer-friendly approach.
Our team loved the final design of our mascot, and we hope you do too! We realize that we eventually manufacture and sell load securement products and dunnage air bags, but we always aim to do our business by caring about each detail, by bringing creativity into light and by providing the best service possible to leave behind a desire to work together on a sustainable basis. We believe, IDude, with his strong arms, friendly face, and dynamic outlook, reflects our strengths and ambitions.
Thank you for reading IDude’s story!
