Faff

CANVAS 2014 And thereby hangs a tale

Jaideep was relaxing at home on a Sunday afternoon in September when his phone rang suddenly. He recognized the number as his college friends’ residence who lived in the same building, albeit 4 floors away. Perhaps he was calling to make plans for dinner, and picked up the phone. “Can you please come home if you are around? We need your help!” shrieked Abhijeet over the phone. Jaideep could sense the angst in his voice as he asked him what happened. “We are planning to paint our house in time for Diwali and we can’t seem to agree on what to do for the main feature wall! We need an expert’s suggestion here.” Jaideep kept the phone down understanding the exact issue that his friend was facing. As the General Manager, Marketing at Asian Paints, he knew the things that would run through a consumer’s mind who was in the painting process. Nevertheless, he made his way down 4 flights of stairs to his friend’s house. On the way he reminisced about the journey of the “feature wall”.

A Quiver Full of Arrows The concept of a feature wall has gained in prominence as an integral part of home décor since the last 15 odd years. Initially, just a different colour was enough but today the space has become very vibrant with multiple offerings competing for creating a unique feature wall in the home. About 10 years ago, the use of dark, bright, vibrant colours had all started proliferating across movies, TV serials, coffee shops like Barista, etc. and was finding its way into homes. Textures as it then stood, was a natural extension of this trend. Asian Paints introduced the Royale Play brand in 2004 with a textured special effects product as a unique offering as a feature wall. The “Play” part was intended to have a strong rub-off on the Royale brand and add dimensions of – being younger, fashionable, fun & trendy. The product itself is the most consumer friendly offering in the Asian Paints stable and allows for literally any design to be...