Crown - Careful beware of advertising conventions

Nicole Tenthij and Stephanie Brown

Short campaign in 2001 for a new variant of Crown paint, Breatheasy (an odourless paint). Crown had successfully repositioned itself with emotional values (IPA Award 2000), but Dulux was still leader, outspending and in a stronger position on colour-mixing, and there was increasing threat from own-label.
Agency: BDH/TBWAAuthors: Nicole Tenthij and Stephanie Brown

 Crown

Careful Beware of Advertising Conventions

Introduction

This case sets out to demonstrate a typical dilemma that brands are frequently faced with:

How to exploit a rationally based product opportunity in a market where image and emotionally based values are so important.

Traditionally, there are two accepted routes that brands can take:

  1. The most popular route is to defend the integrity of the brand by communicating the rational product benefits tactically, for instance, at point of sale.
  2. The second option is to put the brand to one side and advertise...

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