Royal Ceramics opens mega showroom at Col. 3 - March 08, 2003
Royal Ceramics Ltd., (RCL) which has unveiled its new brand and logo "Rocell" on Thursday opened its premier showroom at 440, Duplication Road, Colombo 3.

Previously too RCL had a showroom at the same place but the new management at RCL decided to refurbish and expand it to give a true reflection of the class of Rocell tiles, and make the Colombo 3 showroom the company's premier. It was designed by Design Consortium and reinforces RCL's new thrust to reposition its products.

The company said that the new dynamic logo "Rocell" was to herald a new era for the RCL which started operations in 1991. Last year young investor Dammika Perera acquired the controlling interest in the company. His retail apparel superstore Beverly Streets also happens to be next door to Rocell's premier showroom which will be open from 9.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m. while Beverly Street is open 24 hours.

The company said that Rocell stands for floors and surfacing than mere single tiles and the new logo depicts a collection of flour tiles rather than one. The new name and logo would be used for RCL's entire product range and is likely to give greater distinction in the market.

RCL started out with the factory at Eheliyagoda in 1991. This was the original production plant of the company producing Porcelain floor tiles and has been continuously updated and is now equipped with the latest technology and machinery from SACMI Italy. The second production facility was acquired last year located in Horana adding printed glazed ceramic tiles to the product range. The new range is on display at the new showroom. The volume of these two factories offers customers both locally and overseas, a wide range of tiles, which supercedes international standards. Designs are from Ferro of Spain and IRIS Ceramica of Italy, who are global leaders in this field. The Eheliyagoda factory, has also received ISO 9001 and ISO 14000 certification.

RCL said that given the volume of these two factories, an aggressive marketing and sales push was required. Therefore, Rocell was launched as the Company's new logo and brand name for it's entire product line, in order to give RCL greater identity and distinction in the market place.

The company said that Rocell floors intend on keeping with the concept of displaying areas of floor rather than individual tiles, so that the customer can fully appreciate the design of the product.

The porcelain tile range will soon be offering an even wider selection of Rustic designs to add to the existing few. These will be designs from Ferro of Spain. The ceramic tiles from the Horana factory are Italian designs from IRIS, essentially copies of natural stone. Hence, we have the antique marble collection with an embossed surface, which represents the ageing of natural marble over a period of time. The Travertino collection is a more, linear marble design similar to the natural marble in the Mediterranean region. The earthen collection has terracotta designs in four colours of "Terra".

While product development will continue at a more aggressive pace, RCL feels that they already have a wide product offering for both- institutional and domestic markets. Their current efforts to expand their distribution channels will now take these new products more widely to both the local and overseas market places


(08th March 2003, Daily Mirror)