Campaign Trail is our analysis of some of the best new creative efforts from the marketing world. View past columns in the archives here.
Berkshire Hathaway paint brand Benjamin Moore first launched its “See The Love” platform in March 2020, just as people were about to spend a lot of time staring at the paint on their walls. The long-running effort, created with agency of record Fig, has generally focused on the dedication, care and craftsmanship of the contractors who are the main consumers of its products. After a 2024 version focused on a daughter's journey as she joined her father in the family painting business, the most recent iteration, “Timeless,” focuses more squarely on family.
For this year’s campaign, the brand and agency decided to focus on longevity: a quality that consumers crave in paint, but that paint companies don’t often advertise around. Concepts around time led to ideas about a family growing up over time, before the team zoned in on the relationship between two siblings, specifically a girl and her younger brother. The conceptual piece gave way to a character-driven one.
“The platform has worked. We see it through some of the metrics that we look at. We're definitely vested in leaning into the emotion,” said Harriette Martins-Szilvasi, senior vice president of marketing at Benjamin Moore. “The platform itself is just so well-rooted in what we're trying to share as a brand and has all of the components of quality that is indicative of our brands.”
That quality even extends to the way “Timeless” was shot: on 35mm film and in an old-school aspect ratio by director Matthew Dillon Cohen. It will run across broadcast and online video with support from national out-of-home ads. The broader campaign also includes radio, print, social and display ads, and will run across the U.S., Canada and international markets.
“It really fits within what we're trying to achieve as a brand,” Martins-Szilvasi said of the platform, adding that this year’s iteration is “definitely [her] favorite.”
“See The Love” has been the guiding light of the relationship between Benjamin Moore and Fig, formerly known as Figliulo & Partners, that has existed since 2018.
“When we pitched all those years ago… we had a couple of big insights going into that. It's a very rational category, but we actually think it's a very emotional category, which I think this new campaign really reflects,” said Mark Figliulo, founder and creative chairman at Fig. “‘See The Love,’ we wrote that all those years ago, and we've stayed with it.”
Advertising to a diverse audience
An anthem spot begins with a contractor applying coats of a mint-green paint to a bedroom’s walls. The ad then focuses on a girl in a crown who takes a picture with her pregnant mom. In montage, the girl and her brother grow up, from ballet birthday parties and elementary-aged games of hide-and-seek to the point when the boy becomes an “annoying little brother.” When a door is closed in the brother’s face, it opens to reveal him older. The girl, a young woman now, empties her room and heads to college. “Surround your life in our life's work,” reads a tagline.
“We cast the oldest girl in the spot first, and then we worked backwards to fill in the cast, so we really had a sense of who she ends up becoming,” Figliulo said. “But everybody in the process… all of us brought our past to this story. There's a little bit of all of us in this woman. We all had those common themes, but we all had our individual takes on it as well. So it was a real team effort.”
While the minute-long cut of “Timeless” is the fullest expression of the campaign, 15- and 30-second cutdowns tell the story in different ways. The same is true of OOH ads that show the passage of time via a pair of conjoined images. No matter the medium, the message is clear.
“This paint lasts a long time because of the quality, but it's also the emotional thing. So we didn't have to burden you too much with the rational bit. It was baked into the idea. We can tell the story, not just the product story, because it's the same thing,” Figliulo said.
Selling the longevity of paint may seem counterintuitive to a company that wants to sell more product. But while homeowners usually paint every several years, Benjamin Moore’s consumer group also includes contractors, residential painters, architects and designers. The campaign is intended to appeal and resonate with the brand’s entire audience.
“I talk to contractors every day, and they really appreciate the ‘See The Love’ work, because they see themselves in the work,” Martins-Szilvasi said. “For designers, the color choices and seeing this as a brand that does have longevity, that speaks to what they can offer their clients. For consumers, it also is a challenge, because they are not on this journey as often, but making that human connection with them… we're predisposing them to us.”
