The Color of Vanilla
January 31st, 2007 by Chief NutPart 4 of a series on “Defining Online Branding“, by Mihaela Lica, talks about “Color Psychology”. This is powerful stuff and Mihaela makes some very good points about the impact of color. HOWEVER, if you read this article as a layman and are seriously in the process of reconsidering the development of your brand, you’re likely going to:
- Create a light colored background
- Settle for an airy layout
- Use a primarily blue logo (not too dark) … Unless you’re in the hospitality or food industry where you’d go with green
- Avoid oranges and reds altogether
This strategy would lead to a complete lack of differentiation. The choice of colors in the development of brand is as wide and varied as the companies themselves and the people running them. IN FACT, I would be so bold as to say that creatively breaking the mold is more powerful than any strategy that dilutes impact or the strength of a powerful emotional connection.
So, how would I modify these suggestions? Instead of
“Green, in its various shades, is perfect
for the hospitality industry, food industry (especially for BIO
products) cosmetic (if we consider Yves Rocher and Garnier) and ecology.”
I’d say something like;
Cool hues of green can be used effectively to support calming emotional connections such as health, innocence, simplicity, a lack of chaos and for companies wanting to create a feeling of strong customer service. As the green becomes more saturated, it would increase in energy and would lend itself to more energetic emotional connections such as vigor, youthfulness, playful activity and for companies wanting to emphasize the service delivery experience … not so much soothing customer service.
Notice the complete lack of mentioning any particular industry! It is not only possible for a company to go WILDLY astray (from the norm in their industry) in the development of corporate brand, I would suggest that it’s the only way to clearly differentiate yourself from the pack. It would be perfectly sound for a hospitality company to create an energetic, orangy-red color palette in development of a brand that connects with a “you’ll have fun when you work with us” emotion.
Mihaela soundly informs us that “color is probably one of the most powerful psychological tools” we have. I suggest using it to steer your brand toward a powerful emotional connection, but don’t knee-jerk ANY brand element just because that’s the norm in your industry!
Need an example? Did you ever hear of Aflac before the duck? Who would have ever suggested portraying a conservative insurance service in such a wacky, playful manner. The talking duck works because it’s not the norm.
What about red, green and purple computers? Apple was bold enough to create them when the norm for every other computer manufacturer on the planet was grey and black. BRAVO Apple!
Last example … Creating our own heavily textured, black background, with unique torn-paper navigation is probably the best brand move we’ve ever made …€” emphasizing bold, creative “trickster-like” emotional connections. We get more comments about it (some hate it …€“ most love it) than any of the hundreds of sites we’ve created in 15 years. I truly believe that with a vanilla design, we would not have experienced the 500%+ increase in revenues that we saw this past year!
NO MORE VANILLA! Gimme the pistachio, rocky-road, double fudge with ALL the fixin’s!!!
February 2nd, 2007 at 10:12 am
You make very good points there, Chief. And I’d also recommend boldness in using color for creating a brand that “stands out of the crowd” - but sometimes is better to respect the norms than fail. Yet, I’ve never said “Avoid oranges and reds altogether”. On the contrary:
“Reds and orange are not so easy to deal with, especially online.”
And yes, I agree with you: “Although each color has its audience and its industry, there are cases when one color might be successfully employed for atypical applications.”
See? We are on the same path. I’m hust more… “moderate”? Anyway, you have a great blog here! Keep up the good work. I’ve bookmarked you already.
Greetings from Germany,
Mihaela
February 2nd, 2007 at 11:00 am
Hi Mihaela,
Thanks very much for your bravery of posting back a response. INDEED we would have some spirited discussions about the topic of branding … my favorite kind! I plan on continuing to read your posts and look forward to the rest of your series. Keep up the good work!
Kevin Skarritt
February 3rd, 2007 at 12:59 am
Mr. Nut,
In fairness to vanilla, Apple has done an outstanding job is making white their icon. I was slightly offended to see the iPod available in black. (I’m over it now). In addition to choosing colour based on psychology I also look at colour as an icon. Example: UPS - brown, ING - orange. These companies own their colours.
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Mihaela are you not contradicting yourself with your understanding of colour as a differentiator but state in your following comment, “but sometimes is better to respect the norms than fail” positions your solution as a follower instead of a leader. I would suggest that the failure was not based solely on colour choice but more a combination of many other factors within the brand.
February 4th, 2007 at 5:13 am
Well, you’ll find another response on by blog echoes and some links to your great website as well! Hope you enjoy it.
Mig
February 9th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Chief,
I just want to pat you on the back for the best website/blog design I’ve have the pleasure to come across. It’s one of those, “I wish I had thought of that!”
Ed