Show Your True Colours

Paint brands have spent more than a century naming colours after Western landscapes, flowers, and lifestyle references that mean nothing to the average Nigerian consumer. Mocha Brown. Begonia. Clementine. The names are sweet-sounding, but hollow to the average Nigerian. A global brand was selling colour to a generation of young Nigerians who could not see themselves in a single name on the palette. That contradiction was our starting point.

To launch Dulux Spruce, we did something that had never been done in the brand's 95-year history: we took colour naming out of global headquarters and brought it to Lagos. But we did not just swap foreign words for local slang. We built a process. Dulux colour consultants and their technical staff, colour psychologists, Gen Z voices and pop culture enthusiasts were brought into the same room, and together they named all ten colours.

Every name had to earn its place twice: once in the psychology of colour, rooted in Dulux's deep heritage of colour consultation, and once in the cultural imagination of a young Nigerian audience. The result was ten names that hit differently because they were true on every level. IJGB Orange. Odogwu Red. Shakara Purple. Ìdán Black. Softlife Blue. Old Money Green. Baddie Pink. Sarki Brown. Ajebo Yellow. Steeze White. Every name was an original expression of who we are, backed by science, history and culture in equal measure.

The creative execution doubled down even more on Nigerian culture. The campaign was built to showcase Nigerian fashion and flair. Every colour was paired with a distinct archetype and shot by one of the foremost fashion editorial photographers in the country. Ten identities. Ten posters. Ten films. One unified world.