CIL Paints has launched Canada’s first “paint colours for men” collection called Ultimate Man Caves, designed to get men more excited about painting projects. Or, judging by the chosen names, at least to get the Canadian paint company some free publicity. And it’s working!
As Melissa Leong explained in the National Post:
“Real men don’t paint their basements in ‘Butterscotch Tempest’. They colour the walls with Beer Time.”
CIL has renamed 27 of its paint chip names including Fairytale Green (now Mo Money), Juliet’s Potion (Zombie Apocalypse), and Cloud Nine (Iced Vodka).
Same paint. Same colours. Two entirely different responses.
CIL held a Facebook contest in August asking consumers for manlier monikers in English and French. More than 15,000 responded. CIL’s marketing team chose their favourites (CIL’s Alison Goldman’s favourites are Old Sweat Pants and Pimpin’ the Trans-Am) to be featured in-store along with their 1,200 existing colours.
Q: My living room is painted “Roxbury Caramel”. What’s yours?
The Ethical Nag 
This is SO TRUE! Thanks for this revealing look at what works in selling – and why. I’ll never look at paint colors the same way again. Love your blog.
Thanks, Junie. This campaign has affected how I look at paint, too!
Hahaha. I can just imagine my hubby rolling his eyes at flowery/girly/romantic paint names. There’s power in words, right? So funny… Our living room paint is called Sahara – a nice non-threatening neutral name.