Bath brand, creative and digital agency Mr B & Friends has crafted a striking integrated campaign for global dry lining manufacturer Siniat – with the client hailing it as “truly astonishing”.
Siniat marketing and communications manager Fiona O’Callaghan admitted the firm knew it would be a “tricky brief to tackle”. 
But she said the team at Mr B’s had created a beautiful solution that used humour to tackle a lack of awareness of its product range.
Mr B’s campaign uses the strapline ‘If walls could talk’ and features actors with body paint emerging from different types of wall to deliver the message.
The integrated digital campaign leverages YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Google Display Network to drip feed different messages to homeowners and builders.
Siniat, formerly Lafarge Plasterboard, supplies plasterboard products to customers ranging from jobbing builders and merchants to major commercial developers from its main UK site in Portbury, near Bristol.
Mr B & Friends senior account manager Jen Neville outlined the challenge. “We were asked to tackle the lack of awareness among builders and homeowners of the varying types of performance plasterboards available within Siniat’s portfolio,” she said. 
“The agency had to create something that appealed to both audiences and encourage them to talk, not just about decorative finishes, but also about using the right board, in the right place.”
Mr B creative director Kate Gorringe added: “The strength of the ‘If walls could talk’ campaign is that it takes a product which is normally hidden from view, and puts it front and centre, in a highly disruptive way.
“With actors painted into walls and talking directly to the viewer, we’re in no doubt of the message – use better plasterboard.”
Fiona O’Callaghan at Siniat is delighted with the campaign. “The outcome is truly astonishing! I think the use of humour has really broken down the ambiguity around the product,” she said.
The Siniat name has been used by Lafarge Plasterboard since it was acquired by the Etex group at the end of 2011. Siniat now has 35 factories across Europe and the Middle East employing more than 3,300 people. 
Mr B & Friends was launched by Simon Barbato in a bedroom 11 years ago and has grown to become Bath’s largest firm of its kind and one of the fastest-growing in the region, employing 36 people.
Its clients include blue-chip companies such as Intercontinental Hotel Group, Principality Building Society, Unite Students and SSE.
