PPG Gives Paint Shoppers a Voice

Cranberry Township, Pa. — Because they’re complex, multifaceted and expensive, PPG Architectural Coatings’ paint displays are typically replaced only once every eight to 15 years. That time came recently as the manufacturer/distributor set out to create its “The Voice of Color” campaign. “The mandate was to make this as differentiated and forward-thinking as possible,” says Dee Schlotter, senior color marketing manager for North America.At the heart of the effort was an in-store kiosk called the “PPG Color Work Station” that provides shoppers with the ability to pick custom colors and digitally “paint” a room or multiple rooms. Users can browse 1,300-plus colors from multiple brands with the help of a sophisticated matching system. Rather than thumbing through swatches and trying to envision what the paint will look like on their walls, “Now, the consumer can make that happen on the screen,” Schlotter says. And if they like what they see, they can save and email their projects to themselves.PPG reorganized its entire color palette to better coordinate the rows, each of which begins with a card revealing its top three colors along with popular trim and ceiling colors. Users can scan any color chip or brochure with a bar code to display it on the touchscreen, drag and drop colors to paint a room, watch videos and more.The system is based upon the insight that every color brings an emotional association and that people are drawn to certain colors based on their personalities. “They can change the color to what they like,” says Schlotter. “Everybody wants to customize now. Everybody wants his or her own look. People are frustrated when they can’t change something . . . but this is dynamic and live, and you’re able to update it every day if you want.”“The Voice of Color” campaign launched in March, with kiosks rolling out to approximately 650 independent paint dealers in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, Schlotter says. “We look at this as long-lasting. The initial response went up really high once the piece was in the market. When dealers saw it, they wanted it.”PPG is judging the success of the effort based primarily on kiosk usage. The company drew on research that shows Millennials and even Boomers want to engage digitally. It market-tested the concept with 30-minute one-on-one sessions with homeowners over age 30 who said they were interested in home decor and tended to shop at independent paint dealers rather than home supercenters.PPG redesigned its website and rolled out a social media campaign on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest utilizing the same theme as the in-store kiosks, while email marketing campaigns help the company keep in touch with promising shoppers. And because every store is linked to PPG’s internal information technology team, the company will have a sense of what color palettes customers at a particular store in, say, southern California, seem to favor vs. other locations.Alias Color, Toronto, helped establish the design and look of the digital campaign. Most of the programming and IT work to create the kiosk was done in-house. The company hasn’t forged relationships with any specific retailers around the campaign, although it is exploring possibilities.In related activity, PPG tapped the services of Vincent Wolf, named one of the top 100 designers in Architectural Digest magazine, to help design the color cards. It also has a partnership with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to distribute color cards at two Frank Lloyd Wright homes. “The second we start talking about Frank Lloyd Wright, it’s amazing the reaction we get on social media,” Schlotter says.

PPG Gives Paint Shoppers a Voice

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