3 and a half minutes of nothing but a man painting a fence, an entire ad break that was maybe the most boring thing ever screened. And that was the point. To make people feel exactly like they do when painting a fence. Bored! Then remind them that’s why Ronseal does exactly what it says on the tin, to help you get the DIY over with quickly and easily, so you can get on with something more interesting. Risky, yes, in fact very risky but it struck a chord with the public. It was an event designed to create a storm on social, we trended No.1 on Twitter for over 4 hours, as well as getting picked up by almost every national and industry press title.
The spot ran in the most expensive and most watched ad break of the week, the first break in Googlebox. Supported by trailers and posts in the build-up that announced something never seen on TV before and very likely never be seen again. We also worked with a host of influencers and Channel 4 themselves to build a timeline of activity that would create a thunderclap on social. It wasn’t just a TV ad it was an integrated multi-channel experience designed to go viral on second screens.
We were initially worried that Channel 4 wouldn’t let us do this. You can imagine a station not being too keen on airing something that might actively make people change channels. But they were so onboard with it that they offered to create custom idents featuring the iconic Channel 4 blocks to top and tail the spot. These were built for real and were painted with Ronseal for maximum reality. The second most boring shoot I’ve ever been on, the first being the ad break itself.
This wasn’t a piece of work that you could shoot and forget about. On the night itself we had a social media and press war room in place. Creating and responding to tweets live, all mapped against our timeline, it mean that all the risks of failure were managed. It didn’t however stop the mild panic attack I had 30 minutes before the spot went live.
Outside of the ad break we found a lot of other opportunities to push the idea, like the Ronseal Colouring Book. They was also a near 12 minute online version showing him finishing the painting of the rest of the fence. This version ended up playing in it’s entirety on the big screen at one of the award shows. Slightly awkward.
