Hunter Douglas Receives Product of the Year Award

PEARL RIVER, N.Y., July 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- For the 19^th consecutive year, Hunter Douglas has won more awards than any other company in the Window Covering Manufacturers Association (WCMA) Product Awards, the benchmark of industry excellence. This year the window fashions leader once again outdid itself, capturing 30 honors out of the 56 conferred and earning the coveted Product of the Year for the 14^th year.

In addition, Hunter Douglas swept three product categories: "Green Products: Energy Efficiency," "Green Products: Sustainability," and "Verticals and Panel Tracks" and won 10 out of 12 Merchandising Awards.

"We're delighted with the very strong endorsement that we received from the Window Covering Manufacturers Association's independent panel of judges," said Marv Hopkins, Hunter Douglas North America Chairman and CEO. "We will continue to work hard to serve our many loyal customers throughout the U.S. and Canada with the best and most innovative products and programs in the industry."

Product of the Year went to the 2014 Heritance® Hardwood Shutters Collection. The collection was also named Best New Style Concept in the Shutters Category. These shutters re-energize the timeless beauty of hardwood in big ways. They now feature a refreshed color offering, as well as new and updated frames designed to complement popular window trim styling. The exclusive Handcrafted Series was developed to feature techniques found today in high-end wood floors, cabinetry and furniture by offering six custom techniques including: Glazed, Glazed & Burnished, Classic Distressed, Heirloom Distressed, Rustic and Textured.

In the Shadings and Sheers Category, Silhouette® window shadings, unrivalled in the industry for its beauty and performance, garnered two important awards, Best New Style Concept for New Fabrics for Alustra® Silhouette® and Silhouette® window shadings and Honorable Mention, Best New Technical Innovation for the UltraGlide® Click and Walk Away™ operating system.

The new fabrics include Alustra Myst™ with a soft metallic vane and a colored front sheer; Alustra French Linen, which offers a soft, subtle textured front sheer; Mystere™, featuring a rich, horizontal-textured vane coupled with colored sheers to intensify pattern at window; and Monaco™, a casual, cross-textured vane with a colored front sheer.

UltraGlide 2 Click and Walk Away™ offers convenient retractable cord operation that will lower and open the shading with just one click.

In another exciting win, Silhouette® A Deux™ shadings was named Best Style Concept in the Specialty Applications Category. Silhouette A Deux shadings combines an independently operating room-darkening roller shade with a translucent Silhouette shading in one headrail. This option will now allow any translucent fabric to be offered in room-darkening.

Vignette® Traditional™ Modern Roman Shades with the LiteRise® cordless operating system was honored with Best Style Concept in the Green Products: Health and Environmental Safety Category. Providing enhanced child safety, this is a 100 percent cordless manual operating system on the line's rolling shade option. Like all Vignette shades, the product also has no exposed rear cords for enhanced child safety.

The redesigned www.hunterdouglas.com scored Best Marketing Technology. Consumer-focused, design-led and optimized for a range of devices, information is presented in layers, with details a click away. Large photos with bold headings entice visitors, who can go directly to Products; a "Design Your Own" space to explore fabrics, materials, colors and see them in their own rooms; a Workbook for retaining product and design ideas; and a section that explains Hunter Douglas advantages. The Sign-In feature lets consumers create accounts. Social media shares and dealer contact are encouraged throughout.

Best Consumer Advertising Campaign went to "Every Window Tells a Story" 30- Second TV Commercial, which has a jazzy, upbeat persona designed to generate increased category interest and broaden the brand's appeal to include both current prospects and the next generation of customers. It reinforces The Art of Window Dressing™ positioning, showcases proprietary styles, highlights key product benefits, promotes product diversity and incorporates bold, animated graphics.

Hunter Douglas Inc., headquartered in Pearl River, N.Y, is the leading manufacturer and marketer of custom window fashions in North America and a major manufacturer of architectural products.  The company is a national sponsor of Habitat for Humanity, covering windows in every Habitat home built in the U.S. and Canada.

All Hunter Douglas brand products are designed, developed and custom-crafted in the U.S.

For more information, visit www.hunterdouglas.com or call 1-800-274-2985.

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SOURCE Hunter Douglas