Skin that Loves the Sun. Sticky Loves Wet. Noses that Love Paint. BASF has created a masterful ad campaign that demonstrates the true value of the company. Building Chemistry. Chemistry. Not the science of matter, but the science of interactions. Lovers have chemistry. People have chemistry. BASF has finally made you care about what they do, even if you don't understand the what.
BASF has a brand challenge in that they don't make end products, but supply the chemical innovations to allow manufacturers to make better products. Whew. Try marketing that. So, when they rolled out the new branding campaign you see here, and recently started airing on TV, I thought, "they finally got it right." Well. Close. The ads are brilliant. They create a type of chemistry. Chemistry in the sense of a positive interaction between two traditional enemies. Paint and noses. Skin and sun. BASF and the general public. But, where I think (and I may be the only one) they fall down is in their tag line. The headlines read "We create chemistry" which is a strong position. But the tagline "The Chemical Company" takes them away from the aspirational, to the mundane. Ho Hum. A Chemical company.
Close. Very Close.