Face of Flanders: Donald Muylle

If you watch a lot of commercial television, you’ll be familiar with his message: “I’m Donald Muylle. For 30 years I’ve been making kitchens as if they were for myself.” It’s a powerful message, and it seems to work: As well as his 15 branch showrooms he has an award from Unizo: the most customer-friendly small business of 2012. As if to prove them right, he attracted 11,000 visitors to his premises on last weekend’s Open Business Day, the single biggest attraction of the event.

What his fellow kitchen-makers make of him, however, is not so laudatory. The problem is his latest advertisement, in which he sings the praises of his own laminated surfaces, which he reasonably points out repel water and resist discoloration. If you have a fitted kitchen, you’ll know only too well what he’s on about.

The trouble is, in praising his own product, he indulges in a little knocking copy regarding his competitors, and this has created some ill-feeling in the business. Competitors rushed into the public prints with accusations of lying, exaggerating and not telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Muylle responded in politic fashion: “We do not wish to respond to this.”

It’s no surprise, then, to discover barely a day after that storm had lain down that Donald Muylle is to bring his considerable PR skills to bear to the advantage of the federal police. He’ll be employed giving communications training to senior officers in the West Flanders area. “It’s remarkable how Donald Muylle is able to reach the wider public with a simple message. That’s an art,” said Dirk Van Nuffel, chief of police in Bruges, speaking on VRT radio. “His ads are short, simple, clear and authentic. Any senior police officer who could come across that way to his own men and the public would be very convincing. That’s the plan.” 

Photo: De Standaard