Devine Color (Chicago)
Agency
Current Lifestyle Marketing (Chicago)
Campaign
Devine Color Reinvents the Paint Purchase Experience
Duration
April-August
Budget
$200,000
Devine Color is a luxurious paint brand that has been distributed primarily in the northwestern US market. Gretchen Schauffler, an artist who creates the colors and developed a process that allows customers to choose color in new ways, founded the brand before Valspar bought it in 2009.
Current Lifestyle Marketing was tasked with helping to develop a unified brand position as well as creating a new e-commerce platform to lay the foundations for Divine Color's national expansion.
“We needed representation online of what the brand is about,” explains Joel Wasserman, GM of Devine Color.
“We had an existing website, but it wasn't functioning as an e-commerce site and it wasn't representative of the brand. We did a complete audit of the brand to get to the main messaging, which is that we provide artist-created premium wall coatings with illuminating sheens in a trend-proof palette.”
Strategy
The e-commerce site was built around the new positioning. Devine's social media properties were also relaunched.
“We needed to bring the brand to life for Web visitors and educate both consumers and professionals about why Devine Color is different,” says agency president Virginia Devlin. “We're asking people to change the way they think about selecting paint. We were thoughtful about creating a user experience that guides visitors through that process.”
The process centers on Color Discovery Cards, which have an opening in the center framed by 10 to 12 paint samples. Media and blogger outreach and trade show attendance helped drive broad awareness.
Tactics
The new website, which includes a blog written by Schauffler and a designer access program for professionals, launched on April 30. The agency also relaunched Devine's existing Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube pages, consistent with the new branding, and established a Twitter page at the same time. Four new videos featuring Schauffler were created and posted to the website and YouTube.
Top-tier home and design journalists and bloggers received materials, including the Color Discovery Cards, in a box decorated with a painting created by Schauffler. Select bloggers, many of whom are also interior designers, were asked to use the cards to select paint for one room of their choice. They were then sent the paint and asked to blog about the entire experience. Some of these posts were used to pitch traditional media and were featured online.
Schauffler and Wasserman interacted with professionals, consumers, and media at two June trade shows – NeoCon in Chicago and Dwell on Design in Los Angeles. Devine's expo booths were designed to echo the new website.
Results
Wasserman says website sales have exceeded goals by 24.5%.
He adds that the campaign also helped Devine land a $3 million distribution deal with Rodda Paint. New and unique website visitors were both up 10.59% between January and July 2013, compared to the same months in 2012.
About 500 pros signed up for the designer access program, which exceeded the expected numbers of 200. The Facebook page gained 164 new likes between April 1 and early September, compared to a total of 1,068 gained from February 2009 to March 2013. Media coverage garnered 725 stories in outlets such as The New York Times and Metropolis.
Future
Traditional media relations continues and the team is expanding outreach to interior design bloggers.
PRWeek's View
This campaign laid a very solid foundation for the national expansion of Devine Color. Following the effort, the brand's identity has been clearly established both online and off. The team did a great job of articulating and illustrating Devine's unique qualities and of integrating the brand positioning and feel across online channels. The website is user friendly and full of rich content for consumers and professionals. The team also did a fantastic job driving high-profile national media coverage and sending paint samples certainly was a hit with bloggers.
