Activating Their First
Direct-To-Consumer Brand
The Task
We were tasked by the VP of Marketing to not only build and launch a B2B paint company’s first direct-to-consumer brand, but also create a process that would empower the teams and partners to activate the brand ongoing.
“I’ve never seen the activation part of brand building make so much sense.”
— VP of Marketing
The Strategy
A nearly 100-year-old company, known for its focus on products and support for professional painters, needed a growth strategy to introduce the brand to new customers, markets, while beginning a three year business strategy shift.
To do this, we had to determine how their story, support services and product offerings could support consumers in a way the original direct-to-consumer disruptor paint brands had not yet.
Using the equation of credibility, personal support and the shifting definition of what it means to be a DIYer, we created a brand that could compete and win against the top down influencer and one-stop-shop strategies of our e-commerce competitors.
With a small marketing team and big ambitions, we needed to deliver a right-sized and highly directive activation plan and toolkit to create the desired brand experience for both the company and the customer.
Brand Activation
We built the brand’s experience
We mapped out the ideal CX to deliver across our consumer’s online paint journey — providing support (the core of the brand) by targeting customers with the right message (support we provide) in the right channel (the kind of support you need) at the right moment (the kind of support they need, now).
Within each part of the journey, we created messaging, highlighted specific services and recommend tools that solve real problems people struggle with when buying paint online. Instead of serving color on Pinterest and chasing trends, we focused on helping our target find their own intuitive color. With a larger population of DIY’ers (pandemic projects) there was a role to play in giving people more confidence to continue playing in paint. We targeted paid media based on concern — delivering playful and personalized solutions at the moment our audience needed it most.
Chosen Tools:
For Brand — Brand DNA, Key Messaging – for simplicity and depth
For Comms — Messaging + Channel Strategy by Consumer Journey, Mindset Planning Calendar, Content System, highly flexible and succinct Brand Guidelines – for collective channel synchronization and individual channel empowerment
We developed the launch strategy
Our launch was built as a test and learn across paid, organic and owned — leading with PR, Influencers and Pinterest. We developed a content and media approach for both sticky brand awareness AND low-funnel converting media with short stints of reflection and optimization as we worked to find our cost per acquisition.
We created a communication plan with 6 individual channel briefs — allowing channels to work toward something greater together but also achieving the individual metrics we needed each to meet — Pinterest playing a particularly important role. We had dozens of tactics running across paid, earned and owned media — all working toward the same narrative — to change the expectation and experience of paint — especially buying paint online.
An important part of activating a brand is holding leadership and teams accountable for its debut, ensuring the people who drive the brand forward feel clear and comfortable doing so. In this case, the assignment was to bring brand to life through a launch campaign.
Chosen Tools:
For Brand — Launch Messaging
For Comms — Comms Plan, Individual Channel Strategies, Content Plan, Measurement Template
We empowered the teams to drive it forward.
Through collaborative toolkit building and training sessions, we empowered the internal team to drive the brand beyond the launch initiative with confidence and ease. By providing a simple and repeatable process and highly contextualized toolkit, we were able to deliver a holistic strategy that was realistic for their resources, time-allocation, and budget.
We offered support hours for individuals on the team as they had questions on integrating the strategy into their work and role. Now that everyone was on the same page and operating with shared language and understanding, people could work more efficiently and effectively within in their day to day - bringing the brand experience to life for customers.
Chosen Tools:
Strategic Process, Ongoing Strategic Training
If you want to see examples of our tools or need to see more of the data behind the results, please reach out