Commentary

Watching Paint Dry Is More Productive Than You'd Think

DIYers were treated to 24 hours worth of live-streamed DIY projects to kick off the launch of Krylon ColorMaster’s line of spray paints. “The Krylon ColorMaster Challenge: 24 Projects in 24 Hours” tackled home improvement renovations with help from Jeff Devlin, host of DIY Network’s “I Hate My Bath” and a licensed contractor.

From 10 AM to 10 PM on June 28 and June 29, Devlin used 191 cans of paint on projects like a custom-painted ceiling fan, an indoor and outdoor beverage cart, spray-painted cheese grater lanterns to use as centerpieces, a doghouse and a mason jar herb garden.

Fun fact: a prize was awarded to the viewer who tweeted the closest number of estimated spray paint cans used.

The event was live-streamed at colormaster24in24.krylon.com, with Devlin answering DIY questions on Twitter in-between projects.

Marcus Thomas Cleveland created the campaign that makes watching paint dry fun, fast (it’s quick-dry paint!) and informative.

One really interesting aspect of the campaign was that directions for each project were available for download in advance of the live event, so DIYers could work in tandem with Devlin on any project. Throughout the live event, viewers watched an average of 14 minutes of content.

The 24 completed projects were donated to the Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity for resale.

“All of the projects and any unused cans of Krylon ColorMaster were donated to the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity, where they are currently on display for sale in one of their ReStore locations,” said Jamie Venorsky, vice president, creative director at Marcus Thomas.

Pre-event ads ran online at DIYNetwork, HGTV and Pandora, among others. Post-event, ads continue to run, with in-banner video from the event, to encourage DIYers to upload their own project pictures for a chance to win a $500 weekly prize or a $2,000 grand prize.

“In the first month of our sweepstakes, we have had fans share nearly 200 projects,” said Venorsky. “This is four times the number of projects uploaded to the site in the last 12 months combined.”

The biggest challenge of the campaign was “creating the how-to steps for each of these projects,” continued Venorsky. “Then we figured out the order and structure across a 24-hour period to give us our best chance at completing all of them.”

With the live broadcast online, Marcus Thomas created its own media placement inside its custom-created media placement. “We had our own commercial breaks throughout the day where we ran 30-second Krylon product creative that covered several products in the Krylon portfolio,” concluded Venorsky.

“We spent a much smaller portion of the budget on working media and the majority of the budget on creating content. In this campaign, we spent maybe 30% on working media and 70% on creating the content.”

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