Rethink Your Blue Logo. Think Differently About Brand Colors

When building a brand, the selection of memorable brand colors is one of the most important fundamental choices. Brands such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Starbucks all have close color associations, and they’re all in the hyper competitive fast food market. This recognition by color alone is an important commercial advantage.

Other brands such as Tiffany & Co. or T-Mobile even go a step further and claim ownership over a color. In this sense the color trademark is a more valuable asset than the logo.

Stating that brand colors are fundamental to an iconic brand is far from controversial. Yet, somehow, many brands get it wrong. There are more companies fighting for attention than ever before and many brands fail to seize on the opportunity of using brand colors to their advantage; both in design and the use of colors.

Let’s look at how you can think differently about brand colors.

Don’t Get Stuck in the Semiotics Box

Colors, like other visual assets, carry meaning. Semiotics is when you look at things like blue is trustworthy and red is energetic. This also extends to business categories. Fast food brands are red, messaging apps are green, and premium brands are black.

When launching a new brand or relaunching an existing one, using these colors is a way of making your brand understood; and colors can be an attractive shortcut.

Don’t be surprised, but this shortcut comes at a cost.

That blue logo sure makes you look trustworthy. But, are you ready to compete with the nearly half of Fortune 500 companies that also have blue logos.

No longer is it good enough to communicate your brand is trustworthy. Your color needs to work harder because there are so many brands competing for attention.

It’s time to approach brand colors differently.

Use Colors to Signal Change

See what colors your competitors are using and choose something different. Use this difference in color to signal to others that your brand is doing something different than the rest.

For example, look at Mailchimp’s use of yellow. Its use signifies that it’s against the sameness that is prevalent across the B2B marketing platform landscape. Mailchimp uses yellow to show customers that “growing up doesn’t have to mean buttoning up.” The choice to go with yellow probably felt like a big risk at the time because it’s abnormal. But, Mailchimp’s revenue for 2020 was $750 million.

Reframe Your Product Using Brand Colors

Some brands use colors borrowed form other industries and break the norms, and this is done with the purpose of placing their brand separate from the norms of their category or sector.

Although recently more famous for its Super Bowl commercial, Oatly has used this approach for its “like milk but for humans” message. The brand didn’t follow alt-milk brand color conventions and instead choose to use the colors of a cow.

A similar approach can be seen with NUGGS. The vegan chicken nuggets use the color red, typically a fast food color.

You can see this across other industries too. You’ll find telemedicine brand Hims using the colors of a lifestyle brand and not the common blue and greens of the industry. Aperitif brand Haus also uses lifestyle brand coloring to situate itself as an aspirational brand to be in your home and not just a bottle found at the bar.

Consider the behavioral changes you want your audience to make and how color can be of use.

Consider Scaling

Great! You’ve selected a unique color and you’re prepared to have a brand that breaks the mold. But, now you need to think about scalability. Is your color selection functional and approachable? Selecting a bight color that pops such as Airbnb’s coral means that you won’t be able to set text on it in a white background due to insufficient contrast. You’ll also need to ask yourself if it looks as good on printed materials as on a screen.

Consider every functionality case and test, test, and test again.

Fully Commit

Picking the right color isn’t the end of the process, it’s actually the beginning of the process. Sometimes it’s a 176 year long process, at least that’s how long it took Tiffany & Co. to own a color. Those years for Tiffany & Co. continue to count too because you’ll need to continue the process across every part of the brand experience.

Th discipline to continue the use of the same color consistently for a long duration of time takes rare discipline. You’ll need to fight the compulsion to “freshen things up” But remember, successful branding means consistency.

Be mindful that different teams will fight for their preferred approach to color use. A digital team might argue for white because it makes the most sense for UX. But if you keep everything white, how will that affect your brand building?

To keep your brand consistent the brand team will need to fight brand colors battles with the digital teams and the marketing teams. But the more the brand team wins the stronger chance you’ll have to achieving iconic brand status.

Then maybe one day you too can own a Pantone Color like Tiffany & Co. or T-Mobile.