Valspar "Starfish

Brand: VALSPAR PAINTS
Agency: Euro RSCG Worldwide

Review Date: March 17, 2009

Here's a campaign that's much more intriguing than watching paint dry. Rather than show freshly painted houses (or rooms inside houses), Euro RSCG in Chicago treats us to various natural entities dipped in vivid Valspar colors. In two different print iterations, we're shown a starfish dripping purple and peppers glazed with blazing red.

Agency and client deserve credit for thinking outside the can, as it were, and crafting some unexpected and compelling imagery in a category where the creative often lacks appeal.

That said, the central point seems muddled, as consumers might dismiss the artsy trappings and wonder instead how these hues would look on their living-room walls. And wags could complain that natural beauty is being perverted -- or creatures harmed -- just to keep the campaign's slim premise from growing thinner. --