Creative Director Develops 47-Page Deck to Explain One Slightly Blue-er Blue
AUCKLAND, NZ – It was a quiet Tuesday until Leoanguine & Stripe’s senior creative director unveiled what staff are now calling ‘The Bluening’. Meant to showcase the new shade of blue being used for a regional paint distributor’s spring campaign, the presentation spanned 47 slides, two spoken-word interludes, and a seemingly unrelated anecdote about parrots.
According to insiders, Slide 12 sparked confusion when it displayed two identical blue squares with the caption “feel the difference.” Slide 13 then boldly claimed, “One of these will change your life.” Nobody challenged it.
The new blue, named “Risk-Informed Azure”, tested only 3% cooler in consumer heatmaps than its predecessor, “Assertive Denim”, but according to internal emails, that was "enough narrative room to pivot." The rebrand budget ballooned to $187,000, of which $40,000 was reportedly spent on ‘emotive colour exploration’ involving a sensory deprivation tank and a former Cirque du Soleil set painter named Dave.
Account teams were asked to stop referring to it as blue and instead say 'tone-forward primary expression'. An agency-wide Slack update was issued Thursday night banning the word ‘hue’ indefinitely. The client reportedly couldn’t tell the difference until someone printed it and held it next to a sad-looking Bunnings bag. They nodded and said, "Yeah, that one feels more like a Tuesday."
According to insiders, Slide 12 sparked confusion when it displayed two identical blue squares with the caption “feel the difference.” Slide 13 then boldly claimed, “One of these will change your life.” Nobody challenged it.
The new blue, named “Risk-Informed Azure”, tested only 3% cooler in consumer heatmaps than its predecessor, “Assertive Denim”, but according to internal emails, that was "enough narrative room to pivot." The rebrand budget ballooned to $187,000, of which $40,000 was reportedly spent on ‘emotive colour exploration’ involving a sensory deprivation tank and a former Cirque du Soleil set painter named Dave.
Account teams were asked to stop referring to it as blue and instead say 'tone-forward primary expression'. An agency-wide Slack update was issued Thursday night banning the word ‘hue’ indefinitely. The client reportedly couldn’t tell the difference until someone printed it and held it next to a sad-looking Bunnings bag. They nodded and said, "Yeah, that one feels more like a Tuesday."