Summary

Paint paranoia. The feeling of fear you get when you’ve just painted your home and people come to visit, bringing with them the threat of stains, spills, knocks and bumps. 'Relax, It’s Modern Emulsion' dramatises the slightly unhinged (whilst totally relatable) lengths people go to in order to protect their newly painted homes, before revealing that they can relax because Farrow & Ball's new Modern Emulsion is washable and wipeable.

Challenge

Whilst beautiful in colour, Farrow & Ball's paint had a reputation for being vulnerable to spills and stains, leading potential customers to ‘colour match’ with cheaper brands who were perceived as more hardy. To target a new customer base of young families, we needed to find a way to reassure them that Farrow & Ball Modern Emulsion was tough enough for everyday life.

Creative approach

Our message was simple: Relax. Farrow and Ball’s Modern Emulsion is remarkably unmarkable. To calm the nerves of every potential painter across the country we showed them first of all, that we get it. We created three films showing paint paranoia pushed to the limits,  each revealing that with Farrow & Ball, you can relax... stains, spills and scuffs can simply be wiped away.

Press, Social and OOH were also created to help reframe the conversation around Farrow & Ball. Depicting conversations between the occupants of beautiful homes whose paintwork would be in jeopardy, if it wasn’t for the fact they had been painted with Modern Emulsion.

And finally, to truly prove the point, we found real online quotes (from the likes of Mumsnet and Twitter) that questioned the stain resilience of our paint and physically wrote them on walls painted with Farrow & Ball Modern Emulsion using the offending materials. Then we simply wiped them away, as if they never happened.

Results

​26% YoY sales increase (with lockdown upswing removed).  4x more conversation than any other F&B campaign. 79% increase in sales of Modern Emulsion via website.  70% of social media engagement mentioned Modern Emulsion. Increase in all tracked brand metrics. ​

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