AkzoNobel promotes Dulux paint through 'The Apartment'

Jeremy Rowe, the company's managing director, decorative paints, Southeast Asia & Pacific, said the company has three main marketing pillars, one of which is the TV programme partnership. The other two are the annual ColourFutures coffee table book and event sponsorships, with the overall aim being to target both professional and retail consumers with consistent messages.

“The Apartment is the first partnership of this nature and competition we have in this region,” he told Campaign Asia-Pacific. “It is to encourage the public to redecorate their homes and to inspire them. We want to make decoration a more fun thing to do.”

The show, in which couples compete to win a luxury condo by redecorating identical apartments, is set to begin shooting its third season soon. Expanding from its prior seasons where it was shown on AXN and targeted mainly Malaysians. this year's programme will be shown on public television NTV7 and paid television Astro, reaching Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. The show also features instructional segments.

"The Apartment is one of the main vehicles for young people and we have in-store marketing initiatives to tie in as well,” Rowe said.

In Vietnam, meanwhile, the paint company is involved in another TV programme, a children's show called Hi-5. With this programme, the brand launched the 'Let's colour' initiative, which saw the team going to the poor areas to decorate and paint schools.

Rowe noted that it is getting hard for the brand to stand out in the media as there are many media platforms now. Social media, he added, is the right medium for messages to be sent across via videos for example of decoration.

“In Singapore, we have tried many social media platforms but Facebook and YouTube are still the best [for us],” he said. “Consumers want conversations and we also need to demonstrate videos. Facebook and YouTube are good and most helpful and we are trying Instagram now.

Collated by an international group of creative experts, ColourFutures is AkzoNobel’s ongoing worldwide colour trend research that provides global style and design trends, which is published annually. The 2014 issue will be released in October, marking the 10^th year of the publication. As for event sponsorships, last year the brand sponsored Indonesia Fashion week, for example.