AzkoNobel’s Tranquil Dawn for 2020 plans

Oscar Wezenbeek, managing director at AkzoNobel Decorative Paints, South East & South Asia

How do you see the role of colour in the lives of Vietnamese people?

Colour obviously has a great impact on us, living in homes with painted walls. You may choose a colour for your clothes based on your immediate personal interest but your choices for your home are usually based on a consideration of its impacts on human emotion for a longer period of time. Colours can transform our living spaces and the right set of colours could help to positively enhance the world around us.

ColourFuturesTM has been making an impact on our customers’ sense of trend and interior design. Each time we announce the Colour of the Year, we receive active responses from the market, and people discuss and feel excited to apply the trendy colours to their homes. More importantly, colours always tell the stories of a year to come. It is a great thing that through each of our editions, people recognise what common trends are influencing their lives.

Could you share your observations about the colour tastes of Vietnamese people, in terms of interior and exterior design, office spaces, and even things such as festivals and holidays?

As I see, Vietnamese people are flexible and quickly adopt trends. They enjoy customising trends for their own needs too, adding a personal touch to their interpretation of the trends.

AkzoNobel has unveiled the Colour of the Year for 2020, Tranquil Dawn. Could you shed more lights on this colour?

Tranquil Dawn has an air of calm and clarity that perfectly reflects our theme. Inspired by the dawn horizon, it is a delicate, fluid shade that sits somewhere between green, grey, and blue. Its effect changes depending on the colours it is used with, making it a beautiful versatile shade that gives our homes a human touch.

The colour was chosen as we found four key trends for 2020. People today want to care, to be playful, to seek meaning, and to be creative more than ever before. Modern life and our increasing reliance on technology and social media means we feel disconnected, lack joyful moments, become superficial, and lose the skills of our ancestors. It feels like the right time to ask the fundamental question: what makes us special and different from robots and what does it mean to be human?

People are looking for a place where we can contemplate our future, consider our purpose in this brave new world, better connect with friends and family, and express ourselves and be ourselves. We are also at the start of a new decade, a new dawn. The world is full of possibilities – that is why Tranquil Dawn was chosen.

How does the ColourFuturesTM initiative help with AkzoNobel in business?

ColourFuturesTM is a strong instrument to meet our customers’ demands, supporting them in choosing colours for their living spaces. This is one of our key competitive factors in leading the market. Besides that, its diverse applications help to optimise benefits brought to customers, importantly contributing to fostering creativity and to growing our business widely.

What are AkzoNobel’s upcoming projects for the Vietnamese market in 2020?

In Vietnam, like in others markets for us, we will continue to introduce innovative paint products to offer the best protective solutions for homes and construction as possible, while optimising the user experiences. Vietnam has a high demand for products with sustainable benefits – thus, we will focus on more sustainable value, including higher efficiency, durability, and lower impact of products as a way to contribute to Vietnam’s sustainable development efforts.