Behr Paint CMO Andy Lopez has a warning for brand teams tempted to replace agency partners with generative AI: the technology can buy back hours, but it cannot replace the strategic judgment that turns consumer hesitation into brand confidence.
Speaking with host Jenny Rooney on Adweek’s Marketing Vanguard podcast, Lopez walked through Behr’s approach to a very human problem—what he calls “color paralysis.”
Why “color paralysis” is a marketing problem
Paint is a high-consideration category. Consumers may love a color palette, but freeze when it is time to commit. For Behr, the opportunity is not just to inspire shoppers, but to give them confidence at the point of decision.
Behr attacks this friction with consumer insights, clear retail experiences, and color forecasting tied to real behavior rather than isolated trend forecasting. Its exclusive retail partnership with Home Depot, Lopez says, works best when both brands plan together—aligning product, merchandising, and messaging instead of treating retail as a simple distribution channel.
The annual Color of the Year is a visible example. It is not a disconnected trend pick; it is designed to connect forecasting with how consumers actually shop and choose paint.
What AI can and cannot do
Lopez’s agency-side background—including time at Saatchi in Los Angeles working on Toyota—shapes his view of brand-agency relationships. He argues that the strongest agency partners behave like an extension of the internal brand team, bringing outside perspective and strategic rigor that AI alone cannot provide.
His AI playbook is less about cost reduction and more about capacity creation. When AI handles routine production, data pulling, or early-stage iteration, teams can spend more time on high-leverage choices: positioning, partnerships, and creative judgment.
- Use AI to automate repetitive tasks and free up strategic time.
- Keep agency partners for insight, judgment, and problem framing.
- Solve a real consumer friction before scaling inspiration.
- Plan retail partnerships as joint brand experiences, not just shelf space.
What marketers should take away
The Behr conversation is a useful pushback against the “AI replaces agencies” narrative. The brands that win with AI will likely be the ones that use it to create capacity, while protecting the human relationships and strategic thinking that build confidence in high-stakes purchase moments.
For marketing leaders, the test is simple: if you remove a consumer’s hesitation, do you also remove the reason to choose your brand—or do you give them a clearer reason to buy?
Source: Adweek
