The goal was simple. We had to promote the SICO paint product line at Reno-Depot and its plethora of colours. Our first insight was that a web page usually offers an unlimited palette of shades to choose from. To exploit this colourful supply, we developed The Cursor: an innovative web banner application that could match any colour rolled over with an actual SICO paint colour, in real-time. As the user navigates through a page with the cursor, the banner constantly changes colour, matching whichever section of the page the cursor is on. The constant alteration of colour attracts the eye and the concept automatically seduces even the least curious of minds. If not a click, this banner will trigger at the very least a playful moment that will stay in people’s minds.

The concept is simple: when the user moves his mouse over any element on the website, the big box displays the closest SICO paint colour available. How does it work? When the banner is activated, a screen capture is taken and superimposed over the web page, like a second layer. It’s called an HTML5 banner with API Canvas. Through Javascript, we then sample the colour under the cursor and match it to the closest SICO paint colour available. We can access the SICO paint product line database in real-time. The campaign was launched on December 17, 2015, on meteomedia.com, a French weather network website. This highly colourful website was perfect to try this original concept.

The results for this campaign were quite successful. The banner ad was placed on meteomedia.com, a high-traffic website with over 1.8 million visitors per month, for an average of 317,000 visitors per week. It doubled the average click rate of 0.11% for this kind of banner with a staggering 0.23% click rate.