Democratising the world colour

Game-changing tech needs a mindset-shifting brand… and that’s exactly what Taubmans PPG needed us to create for their revolutionary, proprietary technology that would transform any colour into paint, a process that aimed to disrupt and democratise the traditional paint colour selection process. 

An intuitive and consumer-centric product, our creative ambition was to create a people-first, storytelling-led brand that would shake up an industry and hand back ownership of colour to the consumer… empowering them to be inspired by the colours they already love and helping them to create their own personal paint colour to apply to their surroundings. 

People first, paint second

The Coloursmith name, positioning, visual and verbal language were developed in parallel with the technology. We knew that consumers didn’t lack the interest in, and access to, paint technology—what they did lack, however, was the confidence to make a choice that felt right for them. To create a positive connection with this audience, we knew that building a compelling, human-centric brand was just as important as creating useful technology.

Using this insight, we developed a creative platform that focussed on being people-first and paint second, leveraging real ‘colour stories’ by really colourful people. This disruptive approach shifted focus from boring, bland, over-styled spaces to the colourful inner lives of our ‘Coloursmiths’—people who brought the colour in their life, to life. The ultimate outtake—it’s your story, your colour, yours to create—literally inviting the audience to create colour inspired by their own lives.

There was also a large educational aspect to the brand, so while we wanted to connect people emotionally to the people featured in the Coloursmith campaign, we needed to connect them functionally to the process with a ‘How to Coloursmith’ approach. For this component of the brand, we worked with Jessica Meyrick to create a library of stylised Illustrations that outlined the process of capturing colour using the Coloursmith reader, window and app—all the way through to the delivery of paint test pots. 

This was a brand built from scratch—starting with the establishment of the positioning, tone of voice and brand name and followed by the development of the brand identity, logomark, design system, and suite of brand assets (photographic and illustrative), all conceptualised, art directed, designed, and produced by our in-house team. 

Armed with this suite of verbal and visual language we produced a multi-channel launch campaign for Coloursmith which covered social, digital, film, OOH, in-store and the publication of a Coloursmith coffee table book – a decidedly non-traditional way of launching that helped to build credibility as a storyteller brand.

The power of storytelling

Our approach to every touchpoint was to ensure that this was a brand that wouldn’t ever feel like traditional advertising. Instead, we needed to focus on showcasing diverse voices, genuine experiences and, above all, authentic storytelling. To that end, our approach to production was to use a documentary-style aesthetic that captured the subject's personal story using their own voice and words. To date, the content has delivered over 8.2M completed views across YouTube, achieved a 53% video completion rate (well ahead of the 45% benchmarks), and led to over 47,000 Coloursmith App downloads.