Challenge

Created in 1994 to demystify Ronseal’s range of paints and wood stains, the slogan ‘Does exactly what it says on the tin’ has, for almost 30 years, epitomised how easy the brand’s products make DIY tasks. The no-nonsense simplicity of this line has made it one of the most recalled advertising slogans of all time and cemented its place in popular culture.

However, two decades later, brand awareness and salience were fading, and Ronseal was struggling to effectively engage a base of young customers. Less likely to own their own homes or have the skills handed down, millennials were turning away from DIY. The brand’s iconic strapline and historical levels of recall carried little weight with this audience – they were uninterested in the category and less likely to choose a brand over an own-label. 

As Ronseal’s creative partner since 2015, we’ve developed a programme of activity designed to tackle apathy towards DIY and re-engage a new generation with the brand’s down-to-earth spirit, providing them with the tools and techniques they need.

Solution

Over the past eight years, our programme has had one consistent motive – not to glamorise DIY. Sugar-coated DIY is our enemy. Instead, we show how Ronseal products can get difficult tasks done quickly and easily, using the brand’s irreverent, no-nonsense persona to tackle ‘DIY fatigue’ head on with disruptive, deadpan humour. No marketing fluff statements. No hyperbole. 

In that time, we’ve spoofed the famous line of ‘doing what it says on the tin’, turning this potentially limiting factor into an opportunity to engage customers. Our media firsts have created stand-out with a smile, we’ve broadened appeal with younger audiences and we’ve helped Ronseal show up with purpose, in an authentic way.

 Engaging new audiences with stand-out advertising

Working with Channel 4, we created one of the first-ever ad-break takeovers, disrupting viewing and creating a viral moment for the Ronseal brand. Our break-length ad appeared on the eve of the biggest DIY bank holiday of the year, during an episode of Gogglebox. For a continuous three minutes and ten seconds, an ordinary guy in an ordinary garden painted his garden fence using Ronseal One Coat Fence Life, in silence, pausing only to drink a cup of tea and marvel at his own handiwork.

The disruptive format reminded viewers of the full realities of DIY – demonstrating that when you just want to get it over and done with, your first port of call should be Ronseal. A further 15 minutes of fence-painting action was available to view on Ronseal’s website for those wishing to see the project completed, along with a tongue-in-cheek ‘best fence-painting moments’ edit.

The ad got people talking about the Ronseal brand. With a total audience of 35 million on Twitter, and 558,000 active engagements (including retweets, likes, replies and video views), the campaign hashtag trended at #1 nationally for six hours, creating valuable traction in earned media.

Engaging new audiences via useful tools

Based on the insight that two in three people aged 23 to 38 don’t feel confident doing home repairs, we created a campaign to help the younger generation improve their DIY skills. Harnessing the ‘Do It For Me’ trend, we enlisted the help of those handy mums and dads who are no strangers to a toolbox, to show younger customers the ropes and share their tricks of the trade. Through a series of humorous how-to videos across VOD and social media, these parents provide tips on everything from preserving and maintaining wood to looking after paintbrushes.

We also launched Ronseal’s first-ever bot – the ‘Pocket Parent’ on Facebook Messenger – which provides responses and advice from our real-life parents when prompted with DIY questions. Whether it’s painting your fence, doing your decking or getting your outdoor windows and doors sorted, Pocket Parent is there to help. It tells you what products you need and how to use them to complete your project.

Engaging new audiences via branded entertainment

To harness the DIY lockdown legacy, we guided Ronseal into its first TV sponsorship, partnering with Channel 4 to create an original advertising-funded programme, The Great Garden Revolution. The prime-time Saturday-evening show aimed to do for gardening programmes what Ronseal has done for DIY, taking the nonsense out of garden transformations. Fronted by a brand-new team of presenting talent, each week, our experts help people reinvigorate their outdoor spaces on a budget using Ronseal’s extensive range of products.   

The first episode achieved an audience of more than 1.2 million, the highest for Channel 4 in that slot since before the pandemic, with an average of 850,000 viewers per episode. Importantly, the activity generated a positive uplift in brand-tracking metrics and 71% of viewers felt more positively about Ronseal, with sales up 38%. The concept was so successful, it was commissioned for a second series in 2022, with a third series now in production.  

Disrupting with new product launches

We bring Ronseal’s disruptive, straight-talking philosophy to bear on new product launches. One such example was our OOH and social campaign to launch Ronseal Ultimate Fence Life Concentrate. To dramatise the concentrated formula, we created a ‘concentrated’ billboard – the ad took up a tiny fraction of the area, concentrated within a small space at one end of the 48-sheet billboard, while the rest was left bare. The ad simply read: ‘New concentrated size.

It gets the job done.’ To support the OOH activity, we produced a social-media film of the billboard’s creation, featuring the real-life installer explaining how Ultimate Fence Life Concentrate is the biggest thing to hit fences for ages (even though it’s tiny).