2024 Bronze Design or Art Direction

Agency: Ogilvy UK

Client: AkzoNobel UK

Entry Title: Colour has a new chapter

Executive Summary

To grow its Dulux Heritage premium range the paint brand needed to steal share from luxury competitors - which tended to be sophisticated, but cold.

Strategy

Dulux is the mass-market leader in paint. In premium luxury, however, it is a much smaller and newer player compared to the likes of Farrow and Ball or Little Greene. Rather than running with a luxury pack via cold, sophisticated comms, the brand used emotion-led storytelling to disrupt.

The accompanying experience needed to drive fame, record engagement and traffic, and steal share. Research showed that the audience was 230% more likely to read classic literature than the average Brit. The team spotted an opportunity to create an entirely new way to choose paint. Instead of traditional swatches, it blended Dulux’s colour expertise with behavioural science to craft a range of classic novels - including 12 of the world’s most treasured literary works.

Each book cover featured specific Heritage hues and artistry techniques that visually represented its emotional narrative. The collection was called ‘Heritage Editions’ and was supported with a campaign inspiring consumers to paint their walls with the feelings of Moby Dick, Little Women, Dracula and other classics.

Creativity

Colour psychology was used to reimagine the book covers, adorning them with heritage hues and liquid artistry techniques that evoked the same emotions as the novels’ central themes. For an integrated national campaign, feelings and stories were brought to life via a mix of paid, earned and owned media.

3,000 limited-edition books were printed and bound for influencers, gifting and competitions. There were also book cover ads in home and interior magazines, and across major OOH canvasses. A hero partnership was booked with celebrity host of BBC’s Between the Covers, Sara Cox.

Spotify ads and podcast partnerships honoured how words can paint colour and feelings in the mind; Pinterest videos showed the paint being applied to walls in the style of each book. Social posts sparked curiosity and conversation around the books.

Results

The campaign provoked the highest ever surge in volume sales since the brand launched - representing a 35% increase in retail market share within premium aesthetics.

The work drove 152.4 million reach via PR and double the amount of national press coverage expected. It achieved 5.6 million reach via influencer and paid media activity; 4.9 million podcast impressions + more than 600,000 completed Spotify listens.

Social engagement achieved almost double the target of completed video views, exceeding the CTR target on social by 68%. There were 85% more web users and 76% more web sessions year-on-year.