Mexico is a country full of colors.

Even hundreds of streets across the country bear the name of a color, but none of them looks like the color of their names.

The creative idea consisted of picking some of those streets, then painting each one with the different tones of its original color name and wait for the "Google cars" to come and scan the fresh-painted streets.

The intention was to convert Google Street View in the new Comex native digital catalog, offering to people the possibility to navigate immersively through real colors from any kind of device, without using an API nor downloading anything.

This is how we created ColorMaps, the first real Living Paint Catalog that can be universally seen through Google Street View.

Now everyone can discover how the Comex Colors look painted in real facades before buying them online, just navigating in Google Maps.

This project took 18 months to go live.

We selected three iconic streets of Mexico with a color name (Violet, Orange, Red). We came to an agreement between Comex and the neighbors and spent weeks painting the facades of houses, buildings, schools and shops with the different tones and hues of each street original color.

Then we waited for the typical Google cars to come and scan the fresh-painted streets, and upload the new photo spheres to Google Street View: by doing this we did not have to modify anything from Google's original platform to implement the idea, and most of all, we did not use any API.

This way, ColorMaps is an idea accessible by anyone who wants to navigate through Comex colors in Google Street View, a non-monetizable platform used by more than a billion users around the world.

Something that could be defined as a hack.

Since the launch on February 19 and until April 25:

+53 million impressions.

+20 million unique users.

+1 million clicks.

+1 million views.

The first real Living Paint Catalog that can be seen through Google Street View, without using an API.

Comex main target is people between 30 and 65, male and female, ABC+, connected to the Internet. This represents an approximate audience of 30 million people in Mexico.

The objective was to connect with this audience in both a universal and digital way. Google seemed to be the perfect platform, but we needed to find a way to show the Comex Colors in an attractive manner, so we pretended to offer the possibility to people to navigate through colors in Street View.

Google Street View is a non-monetizable platform, which does not admit advertising. Brands cannot touch it. The only way for a brand to get into Google Maps is to alter reality. So we put all the energy to achieve it: the strategy consisted of finding the way to "hack" Google Street View and convert it in the first universal showcase ever done by a color brand.

Founded in 1952, Comex is Mexico's top paintings and color company and one of the most loved brands. It's also one of the largest retailers of the country with more than 4000 proprietary shops.

Every year Comex launches its renovated color catalog, with more than 2400 references. It's the company's most important selling tool, as it's the main inspirational touch-point for every person willing to paint its house.

But the catalog itself is a very reduced way to show Comex colors, as each of them is shown in 2cm square: a tiny sample when you're about to buy gallons of painting.

We were asked how we could show real Comex colors painted in real houses and streets making it digitally and universally accessible by any person, to give them a clear reference from each color tone and help them making their color choice.