Bring back the spark with a Royale Play surprise, says new campaign

In the two previous commercials for Asian Paints Royale Play, brand ambassador Saif Ali Khan introduced the concept of a "feature" wall to viewers with some help from a jazz band and his sister Soha Ali Khan. 

This time around, the communication task changed a bit. According to Vandana Krishnia and Vinay Bhopatkar of Asian Paints, "With the first communication, the task was to create and establish the category in consumer’s mind. From there we moved to establishing brand Royale Play as a fun and exciting designer paint offering for creating great home decor. Today the task is to evolve the consumer into taking up Royale Play as a decor story more than a paint story.  Consumers will take up their house painting once in every 4-5 years but they would like to change the decor using various elements every now and then. It is important to establish that the consumer can transform the decor of his home by panting just one designer wall; even if the consumer is not interested in painting the whole house. What’s more, this can be a great gifting idea as well."

For the team at Contract Advertising, this translated into the opportunity to up the ante and touch consumer lives in what they describe as a "real way". Creative director Malobi Dasgupta and vice president - account management Ayesha Ghosh explained, "Royale Play targets affluent urban couples, many of whom will have been married a few years. Here was a great way to introduce an element of surprise into the everyday lives of couples. What if a man or a woman changes their house dramatically  by painting just one wall with Royale Play while his or her spouse is away ? And what if Saif Ali Khan, the original brand ambassador of Royale Play, was the one encouraging this surprise in people's relationships and homes.A transformation of the home that would help bring back that spark to the relationship. Thus the idea of Surprise Your Spouse was born."

WATCH the TVC (story continues below)

In the TVC, a woman invites Khan home while her husband is at work. They decide to paint one wall in the house red, and Khan brings in the painting crew to give the chosen wall a Royale Play finish. When the husband does come back home, he’s delighted with the transformation in the house. The call to action asks viewers to give Asian Paints a call for the quick makeover and that three people could win the chance to meet the actor as well. 

Besides television and print, the campaign will also be seen on digital and Facebook. Dasgupta and Ghosh said, "Getting new users to upload videos of the experience of the paint and how their spouses reacted to the transformation, entertaining Facebook users (www.facebook.com/royaleplay) with a virtual application, Surprise Your Spouse, that lets them create and gift a Royale Play wall to their spouses for the reward of a free makeover in the end, and letting people experiment with the range of Play textures through the microsite, www.surpriseyourspouse.in, are all going to be part of the integrated activity that will continue for up to three months." The blogger community is also a part of the communication plan. "Already we have had a couple of design bloggers reach out to us, to have their homes painted with Royale Play and thereby surprise their spouses. The result has earned us flattering posts in their blogs. These will shortly be seen on the microsite as well," said the Contract team. They added, "In January Saif Ali Khan will visit three couples in their homes who have surprised their spouse with Royale Play and surprise them. We will be shooting the surprises in the new houses he visits and uploading them on the Surprise Your Spouse channel."

Krishnia and Bhopatkar of Asian Paints said, "The Surprise your Spouse idea captures the essence of the communication objective very well. Home is where relationships are nurtured, and it follows that the transformation of the home through the Royale Play wall would bring a rejuvenation in the relationship. Also, as surprises go, this is an unexpected one with which to surprise one’s spouse. Also this will prompt consumers to try out Royale Play walls beyond the natural painting cycle as an impulse purchase for great home makeovers."

View the print ads (click on image to enlarge)

Credits

Agency: Contract Advertising

Creative team:

Writer (TV script): Malobi Dasgupta

Writers (Digital): Malobi Dasgupta, Nishad Ramachandran, Sahar Sehgaal

Creative directors: Raj Nair, Malobi Dasgupta

Creative director (art): Pravin Sutar

Account management:

Account management head: Ayesha Ghosh

Account executives: Naina Meattle, Anuradha Bhandari

Office head: Kumar Subramaniam

Account planning

National head of planning: Rohit Srivastava

Head of planning, Mumbai: Anand Damani

Strategic planner: Shikha Thakur

Production company: Highlight

Director: Sunhil Sippy