Canada’s best-known paint retailer has picked Cioffi & Partners, a two-person Toronto ad agency, to handle its $3-million account and bring its new, home-decorating-solution message to the public.

‘Currently we’re a very credible paint and wallpaper store, and where we’re trying to move to is more of a full-line decorating store,’ says Lyndsay Walter-Hiduk, retail director for Concord, Ont.-based Color Your World.

In an effort to hook more of the do-it-yourself decorating market, which is increasingly being driven by women, the company redesigned its stores earlier this year and brought in a broader product selection. Now it’s embarking on a new ad campaign.

In opening a prototype store in March, Color Your World was answering the challenge presented by competitor Benjamin Moore, which began a similar redesign and repositioning in August 1998 (See ‘Benjamin Moore touches up brand’ Strategy, Nov. 8, ’99).

The new mix at Color Your World will add carpeting and window dressings to the selection of paint and wallpaper, and includes redesigned stores with a warmer feel.

The goal is to increase sales by 10% and market share by two points this year, says Walter-Hiduk. Sales haven’t been growing in recent years, she says, but the company has managed to ‘hold its own’ since 1996, when it filed for bankruptcy protection. She also wants unaided awareness to grow by 15% from its current 23%.

Cioffi & Partners is working on print flyers and broadcast support for the campaign, which will roll out in March. But the agency’s involvement goes beyond advertising, as agency partner Neil Durning will tour the country in February to meet with store managers to discuss the new positioning.

The agency is a two-person outfit, having closed its operations in Chicago and Milwaukee in the mid-’90s after its main client, the Carson Pirie Scott department store chain, filed for protection from its creditors. Since then, Durning and Cioffi have been working on special projects for companies in trouble and are now rekindling their partnership.

They plan to have a staff of 12 in the coming months.

Increased competition from big-box operators like Home Depot and Quebec-based Réno-Dép`t is the main reason paint and decorating stores are repositioning, according to industry observers. Other paint stores are making similar changes, including General Paint, which recently introduced a café to one of its retail locations in B.C.

Color Your World has 215 corporate, franchise and authorized dealer stores across Canada. Benjamin Moore, meanwhile, sells through a network of about 1,000 independent distributors and plans to have 375 stores renovated under its ‘Banner Store’ program within the next year. As of the start of this year, it had renovated 130 stores and expects to hit 200 by April 1.