Brilliant! – Rona hoists its DIY street cred

June 8, 2009 by Jonathan Paul

Rona recently took its DIY ethos to the streets of Montreal with a very sneaky OOH execution that came at the expense of Apple. The cheeky brainchild of Bos Montreal art director Martin Bernier and copywriter Simon Beaudry, the ad piggybacked on one of Apple’s paint-drenched ‘Nano-chromatique’ billboards in Montreal.

‘A few months ago, Simon said he would love to do something with the iPod nano-chromatique ad, with those drops of paint,’ explains Bernier. ‘Knowing that paint recuperation was a part of the new Rona campaign, I suggested we do an ad in which the drops fall into paint cans, saying Rona recycles it.’

In what could only be called a covert ad-op, Rona’s poster, which read ‘We collect leftover paint,’ was hoisted 130 feet in the air during the night without Apple’s permission (it was legal because technically the billboards existed as two separate ads), by Montreal-based Trako Media. It was held up by wire and two cranes just below a ‘Nano-chromatique’ ad located at the end of the Jacques Cartier Bridge, heading into the city. It remained there for about five hours the following morning until it was taken down as per an agreement with the owner of the parking lot in which the billboard was housed.