The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2025
Nerolac turned paint shades into street-vendor shops — Abby Grand Prix 2025
At the Kumbh Mela, Nerolac's foldable paint shades became branded stalls for street vendors: 100 million reached, vendor sales up 300% in 45 days.
Kansai Nerolac Paints
The solution
At the Kumbh Mela — one of the world's largest religious gatherings — thousands of street vendors sell from the floor, struggling with visibility and low footfall. In early 2025 Nerolac and agency Tribes Communication treated that as a distribution problem rather than a media problem.
They converted Nerolac's large foldable paint shades — already part of the brand's display kit — into customisable shop units: eye-level displays, counters, signages, hangers, name stencils, trays and hooks, for tea sellers, florists and toy vendors. The units were lightweight, easy to assemble with included instruction manuals, and coated with waterproof paint for durability.
Every vendor became a living shade card, so thousands of pilgrims experienced Nerolac's palette in context — memorability without a traditional ad. The utility was so obvious that event authorities partnered with Nerolac to scale the stalls across the Kumbh with no media spend at all.
The entry reports 100 million reached and 1 million engaged in 45 days, vendor sales up 300%, 24% month-on-month growth for Nerolac's Uttar Pradesh business and an 8% rise in spontaneous brand awareness. It won the Grand Prix for Brand Activation & Promotion at the Abby Awards 2025 at Goafest.
Why it worked
- An existing display asset became a functional shop, so the marginal cost was tiny
- Vendors gained visibility and sales, so they happily kept the brand front and centre
- Authorities adopted the units, giving Nerolac scale without media buying
- Shade cards in active use made the product tangible to millions of pilgrims
- The utility-first idea travelled as news, extending reach beyond the Mela
What can be applied
When your product is a surface, sell the outcome: turning display shades into shops gave vendors visibility and sales, making paint the hero.
Aftermath
The DIY units were scaled across the Kumbh through the authorities' partnership, and the campaign won the Grand Prix in Brand Activation & Promotion at the Abby Awards 2025 at Goafest — Tribes Communication's flagship win of the festival. Reported results (100 million reached, vendor sales up 300%, spontaneous awareness up 8%) come from the award entry itself, but the mechanism — turning a paint display into a working shop — became a reference point for utility-first rural activation work.
Sources
- Tribes Communication's Kansai Nerolac DIY campaign eyes global glory at Cannes Lions
- Nerolac Dukaan It Yourself (DIY Your Shop) — D&AD Awards archive
- Enormous shines as Creative Agency of the Year
- Abbys Day 3: Enormous is Creative Agency of the Year; Grand Prix for Famous Innovations, VML, Tribes Communication
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.