Hasta La Creative!

Ace Hardware tapped FCB Chicago to help introduce The Paint Studio, which seeks to provide a “more style-inspired and personal paint shopping experience” for Ace customers with exclusive paint collections from Clark+Kensington, Valspar Optimus and Valspar Aspire. The resulting campaign, “Helpful Is Beautiful” is the largest ever for Ace Hardware, spanning television, radio, print, social and digital.

“Helpful Is Beautiful,” which was developed by FCB Chicago in association with Ace and Valspar, riffs on tropes from beauty advertising in an effort to emphasize the more design-oriented aspects of The Paint Studio. The attempts at humor fall flat (painfully so), but the spots do get across the more personalized approach Ace’s new Paint Studio takes when compared to other hardware mega-stores. Still, the three 30-second spots are pretty tough to watch.

“For years, women have expressed loyalty to their favorite cosmetics brands and the inspiring shopping experience that comes along with it,” explains John Surane, executive vice president, marketing, merchandising, and sales for Ace Hardware. “Ace and Valspar recognize the emotional response evoked by color and built the ‘Helpful is Beautiful’ campaign and The Paint Studio at Ace around this connection as a way to offer consumers a differentiating paint shopping experience featuring the brands they know and trust.”

Ace also launched a new website for The Paint Studio today, created by GSD&M, and will be featuring special offers to get customers to experience The Paint Studio throughout the month of May. Stick around for credits and a second spot after the jump. continued…

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