The Pantone company, which is known as the “global” authority on color and professional color standards, has declared Pantone 17-5841 the color of the year for 2013. If you don’t have a Pantone matching system handy, then know that number represents a beautiful, emerald green.
According to Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, “green is the most abundant hue in nature—the human eye sees more green than any other color in the spectrum.”
So what happens next? Watch for emerald green to start popping up in appliances, furniture, interior house paints, fabrics, women’s shoes (watch the Nordstrom shoe area), towels and jewelry. Even car manufactures watch the color announcement from the Pantone Color Institute.
Should you change your branding color palette? Probably not. But if you want to look current and contemporary, blend in the PMS 17-5641 and show your inner green.
Each year, the Pantone Color Institute, the company that sets the color standards for fashion and home, declares a color. Turquoise was 2010′s color. 2011 is Honeysuckle, or reddish pink. It is a brave new color for a brave new world. So are you seeing more reddish-pink around than last year.
Before a color becomes “hot,” you start seeing it on the runways and in advertising–we marketers are a trendy, cutting-edge bunch. Then it gravitates to accessories (ties, scarfs, handbags). And then, it shows up in products. Cuisinart is offering an ice cream maker in the new “honeysuckle” color. I prefer to look to women’s shoes to find the next hot color. Go to any women’s shoe area and scan the room. See what stands out. You see millions of black and browns shoes, but one color will rise to the top of the color spectrum. That’s how advertising work as well.
The key is to select a brand color that works for your industry, with a strong eye toward the environment in which you operate. Let’s just say you want to get into the tractor business, I would strongly suggest you don’t select green. But if you are anywhere near John Deere’s influence you will need a contrasting color to differentiate yourself. In many cities, competing hospitals use the same blue. Each hoping to out-color the competition. It doesn’t work. And, it confuses the marketplace. Could you imagine Wal-Mart and Target using the same color to brand?
Pick your color, but be sure to check around the marketing community in which you live and see if there is another dominant player using that color. Then zig while everyone else is zagging. Reddish pink might look really good on you.
I was listening to Dan Patrick the other day, and he asked the Boise State football head coach if it were time to change the field to green since his team is now respected and poised to win a national championship. Boise State’s stadium sports blue turf, or “Smurf Turf.”
The head coach laughed at the question and said they will not be changing the color. He said it is “unforgettable.” In a sea of sameness of college football, Boise has found a way to stand up and stand out from all the other teams. This fall, Eastern Washington University will unveil its red field. Nebraska may think it is the red wave, but Eastern Washington is as red as it gets. They even have a red song playing under their promotional video.
Color branding can be powerful, but you must remember a few simple rules:
You must be a differentiating color. In other words, you can’t be a ‘red’ retailer, because Target owns red. If all the hospitals in your area use blue, and you want to stand out in the healthcare arena, why would you select blue? You probably can’t ’out-blue’ the hospitals. You must select a color that will stand out from all the color marketers in your area, or you run the risk of inadvertently linking your brand to the stronger color-marketer’s brand.
You must commit. Wartburg College has a bright orange track. That is commitment to color branding. You will take some kidding, but it is the kidding that means that your color branding is really working. UPS is so brown, they even ask, “What can brown do for you today.” The drivers are brown all the way down to their socks.
You must be ruthlessly consistent. John Deere is a particular shade of green and they closely guard that color. You can flash a picture of a green tractor for one second and the audience (even a non-farming audience) will guess that the tractor is a John Deere. That is enfranchised color identification.
If you would like to see a little red, watch these two YouTube videos. As the coach for Eastern Washington says, the new red turf has brought EWU ”national attention (including an article in USA Today).” And it really gives EWU some home-field branding advantage.
How powerful is your logo? How powerful is your color branding? According to research and the British government, a logo is powerful enough to make you buy cigarettes. Is your logo powerful enough to move your brand?
According to Britain’s Department of Health and a research project, logo and color have a lot to do with how we perceive product “benefits.” So much so that in December, the British parliament considered a proposal to ban all logos on cigarette boxes and force manufactures to sell black-and-white boxes with nothing on them but health warnings. (The proposal was put on hold due to the economy.)
Research from the University of Nottingham (September 2009) showed that tobacco branding and packaging greatly influenced youth and adult perceptions about the product. The color of cigarette packs also influenced the perceptions of risk and brand appeal. Gold logos were rated as a lower health risk than red logos by more than 50 % of the people.
How powerful are logos? The Wall Street Journal reported that if the logos and branding were removed from cigarette packaging there would be a ”serious risk to the future profitability” of cigarette companies.
This is not a blog about smoking. It is about the power of branding. Just look at the impact a logo and color have on the psyche of consumers. Do your logo and colors enhance your brand to point where people are powerfully influenced — even to the point of buying something they know is harmful? If not, it may be time to redesign your logo and enfranchise color into your brand. And that’s not blowing smoke.
Color is a powerful way to brand. And color has never been more important. Ask a group of people to look at a green tractor for one second and then ask them to name the brand. The will say John Deere, even if they have nothing to do with farming. The color is branded.
Color can be powerful. We are no longer Republicans or Democrats. We are Red and Blue states. UPS doesn’t use its name, it uses a nickname, “What can brown do for you?” The key to UPS’ use of color is its ruthless consistency: the trucks are brown, the socks are brown, the clothing is brown, the boxes are brown. You know a UPS truck from a mile away just by the color. The power is the consistency.
I’ve had football coaches tell me that one color looks tougher than another. Baloney. What looks tough, is color consistency and continuity. Penn State looks very tough at home during one of its famous white-outs when everyone wears the same color — it’s white, not what some would consider a tough color. It could be any color, but used to that extreme is intimidating.
It’s hard to stand out as a color, especially when others around you are sporting the same color. You need to find a different color. Too many times we select colors we like because we are so familiar with them — maybe we’ve seen them on our competitors and like them. If you are blue and your competitor is blue you can never out ‘blue’ them. You need a differentiated color.
This Christmas some lucky people will have a distinctive robin-egg blue box under the tree. It will stand out from all the red, green, silver and gold boxes. And everyone will know that the box is from Tiffany’s. Not because it has a name tag, because of the color.
The Pantone company, which is known as the “global” authority on color and professional color standards, has declared Pantone 17-5841 the color of the year for 2013. If you don’t have a Pantone matching system handy, then know that number represents a beautiful, emerald green.
