EPISODE 60

Derek I think for brands that have been developed thoughtfully and intentionally, more work goes into choosing color than I think people realize. 

Tucker It’s a big part of the process. Just like the process to build out a new logo has certain steps. We’ve had clients before say, Oh my God, I didn’t know how much thought goes into picking a color that you’re going to use to represent the entire organization. 

Derek Think about brands that you know in the world, that you frequent, that you recognize, that you’re fans of. Ferrari is red. Target is red. Starbucks is green. The intention and the thought behind them have some strategy and have some science to what is also a very subjective, but important part of the brand. 

Tucker So when we go through our process, and that’s why I say today’s a shorter conversation because I don’t know if we can solve it for people in this discussion, what we can do is start identifying the ways that people can start thinking about how to be more intentional around this brand color. And I want to hone in on the three ways that we think about brand in general – and that’s authenticity, relevance, and surprise – and how color can affect each one of those in different ways. So when someone may be going through this process or thinking about shifting their color, they can come back and say, What do we really want to accomplish with this color change and how are we going to do that? 

Derek There’s actually science and psychology tied to color. So as we get into what’s authentic, what’s relevant, and what’s surprising for a specific brand, we’re running that through the filter of what colors are already associated with. We’re adding that data to it. Blue is associated with trust. That’s why a lot of corporations, a lot of banks, are blue. Red’s energy and excitement. It’s also danger. If you think about how colors are used in traffic science, you associate red with stop and green with go. Hospitals and psychology wards are very intentional in the colors in which they paint their walls to be calming and healing. There’s an incredible amount of science behind it. So let’s take as much of that as we can and run that through that three-hour filter. 

Tucker And your challenge, what you just said, is red can mean powerful. Red can mean danger. It can mean a lot of things. Yellow means joy, but it also means warning. There are all of these different associations, positive and negative. What matters is how you use it, why you use it, and how it’s going to really affect people. We’re getting down to color psychology. And that’s where it becomes more of a science than an art. And that’s where it’s really hard. So authenticity – I’m going to start there. 

Derek Perfect. 

Tucker We use authenticity in our process within color specifically to convey things like a sense of place. Maybe you’re working with a private club and they have a specific color that they can own because of their sense of place. Maybe they’re on the ocean and the ocean has a certain hue to it. And that ocean hue really represents the club and all of its aspects and we can leverage that in some way. It also can convey a unique value in some regards. So when we talk about unique value, maybe I’ll go back to that example of an ocean. If that ocean is a unique value to your club, then how do we leverage that within your color palette so that you can be perceived as more oceanside versus your competitors? 

Derek The color of the Atlantic Ocean off the southeast coast of Florida is different than the color of the water in San Diego. They both may be in the shades of blue but they’re different which is why we’re talking about being authentic to that place, to that region, and to that area. 

Tucke And then when we talk about authenticity within a value set, maybe a core value set, we think about things like what tranquility looks like. What do things like empowerment look like? You can actually associate colors to core values in some regard, or maybe culture, and come back and say, This is who we are. This is kind of how we represent ourselves, and this is the color that really matches that representation. 

Derek When we jump into the next one, find the line that also helps us with perception, which should be authentic but should also then be under the next category of relevant to the people that we are trying to represent, both within your organization and also the people outside, whether it’s customers or future members or future prospective employees or customers. What’s attractive and relevant to them too? 

Tucker And when we build that relevance to understand what they love, you can understand that this also goes into trends. Sometimes when we leverage market trends, it can be a good thing for us to say, Well, people are really enjoying this type of style or this type of color palette and this is a more trendy or more modern way of looking at it. This is exactly where we would do that to say, This is how we can be more relevant in the marketplace and seem more fresh. We can also leverage this idea of what they have. What do they not have? And that moves more into surprise to say what else is in the marketplace and how we stand out using our color. So sometimes we use color to convey a sense of self to who we are versus maybe using color as a sense of positioning to say who we’re not and what we can be against in some regard. 

Derek The ability to leverage color to differentiate you from your direct competitor is sort of baseline, entry-level, check the box that we look at. If all of your competitors are blue, even though you’re a corporation and you want to convey trust, we’re probably going to try to at least explore another color palette that does convey trust but also makes you stand out from that sea of blue. 

Tucker So that’s why we pair the three together. So, like you’re saying, our table stakes are really to come in and say, How do we look different so that we’re standing out? I think if everyone’s blue then maybe we should be red – or whatever. But then to say if we were going to be red, why does red really fit who we are? So that it’s not different for the sake of being different, but different for the sake of being us. And that’s super important when people make a shift. We’ve done this with other clients too. I remember a client who actually had the exact same color palette as their competitor, their primary competitor, and they didn’t want to switch everything. And so instead of changing the colors that they used, they just changed how they used them. So instead of red, white, and blue, and maybe the primary is blue and the accent is red and the base is white, we used red as the primary, white as the base, and blue as the accent. And we just shifted that. We didn’t shift the colors they had but we shifted how they had them or how they used them. So it’s not necessarily always a complete 180 where you’re now blue but you’re going to be orange or something like that – completely different. 

Derek We’ve also realized through the process that we work on, that we’re also looking to see what’s already working and what’s not broken. In a rebrand or in a brand refresh, if the color has a lot of equity and a lot of positive recognition and association, sometimes it’s a little evolution or adding of an accent or looking at the perception words that said previously when you went through this rebrand, you weren’t vibrant or energetic. But in the last ten years, your organization has shifted younger. Your audience is different and now it’s important that this brand conveys a more vibrant and energetic perception reputation type of brand image. But your color palette still conveys the rest of the perception and the rest of the attributes you’re looking for. So it might just be adding a subtle accent to the mix that’s complementary and lets us start to introduce that in a comfortable way. We’re going through this with one of our customers who’s had a very corporate-safe color palette for a very long time. And they see their opportunity in their market as being disruptive. Of being completely different, of being anti in some ways of the way that it’s always been. And when you look at the companies that are trusted and secure and established in that industry, they’re relatively safe and corporate. So we put together a visual mock-up of this multi-shades of dark blue color palette and we shifted it to reds and oranges just as an exercise to see. We’re not solving today necessarily. But it was a really interesting exercise to understand what that organization that has already associated with one very specific color palette could look like. Imagine if the Los Angeles Lakers changed from purple and gold. It’d be arresting. And that’s not something we would recommend. But imagine just the process. You know, even though that purple and gold sometimes over the years, given the trends, maybe shifted a little darker, a little richer, a little brighter, to match those market trends. But, for the most part, it’s never changed. 

Tucker There’s one story I want to tell from a client’s perspective that I think really encapsulates how we look at color. And it’s with a client called Game One. They did a full brand overhaul and a big part of it was that they were navy at the time. They wanted to change to something and they didn’t know what. And so when we went through our interview process, we talked through almost every single person who either has to use the brand or sees the brand in some regard. They sell merchandise, they sell apparel, and they sell equipment to high schools and small colleges. And they have all these reps that go to all these colleges and all these schools and they have to show up and present themselves and do all this. What we found out in our process was the thing that was really hindering the salesperson from feeling like they could walk into any school confidently and do all that was the color of the brand that they had because navy blue might be a primary color of some schools but it might actually be the rival of another school. And so wearing navy blue in some areas is proud, stand tall, I feel like I’m a part of this. Wearing navy blue in other schools is, Oh my God, let me get in and get out quick because these people don’t love this color. And there’s this inherent ability to say that was amazing to have. Then we switched their colors to a black, white, and silver color palette. It wasn’t just an aesthetic change, it was a sales change. We have to change the colors so we can sell to any school that could have us. And to me, that’s the power of color that opens more doors in some industries.

Derek It was also very bold. I’m looking at our process boards for Game One that are right behind you on the wall. When we landed on their perception words, one of those words was bold. To actually choose to not have color and to not add color and to be neutral. Not only are the clients meeting the schools that we represent and sell product to, but also all the brands that they sell. They sell Under Armor, Adidas, Nike, McDavid, and all these other product lines, consumer product lines, most of which have their own brand color also. So it was a very interesting strategic choice that we landed on to basically say, let’s not have any distinguishing color. Let’s be neutral and let those colors be our supportive palette. 

Tucker So I think that transitions us nicely to wrapping up. To me, color is a tool. We say brand assets all the time. Color is an asset. It’s something that you can leverage in all of these areas. And if you’re using it right, it’s not only shaping your organization from the inside saying we represent this color and it’s great and I love it, versus shaping the consumer perception of who we are and what we do and why they should care. And that’s a big part of this.

Derek And one clarifying point – black and white are colors. 

Tucker Yeah.

Derek So I’m not saying they’re not colors. They’re very powerful colors when used right. When you have the right color palette for your brand, it’s incredibly powerful for you, not only from a sales standpoint but also when representing who you are in the story that you’re trying to tell. 

Tucker We get through this all the time. Not making a decision is a decision, and I would say that’s the same thing with color. If you have navy as your primary color, defaulting to white as your base color is a decision. You don’t always have to do that. I think that there are a lot of people who think you have to have white and black in your brand. That’s not true. We’ve done a lot of brands that don’t have that at all. It tells their story differently than just defaulting to what you think you have to do. 

Derek Our primary color here for years was orange. And a handful of years ago, after going through our own rebrand, we realized that orange was not telling the right story. That vibrant color for us now is red. And there was a lot of thought and strategy but we’ll save that for another conversation. But it takes a little bit of bravery to make a change, as long as the change is thoughtful and strategic. 

Tucker Change is hard. Think about that. Think about when you changed from orange to a different color. I know at that time you said you were sick of the orange. But it had been a long time. You get used to it. It’s on the walls. It’s on some materials. It’s on your desktop. It’s everywhere.

Derek Imagine going to high school and you’re the Hornets and your color is green. And then you shift over to the Trojans because your parents move and you spend your last two years in blue and gold. 

Tucker It’s just different. 

Derek It would be completely shocking. But appropriate and relevant to those brands and the emotional associations that grow with those colors, with those brands, over time.

Tucker All right. Good conversation. 

Derek Let’s pause here and we’ll come back offline. We’ll talk more about color another time. Maybe down the road, we’ll get into some how-to, some solves. We’ll pull back our process and reveal some of the things that we do that help us have those thoughtful conversations with our customers. We’ll save that for another time. 

Tucker That would be a long one. All right. Next time.

Derek Sussner is a branding firm specializing in helping companies make a meaningful mark, guiding marketing leaders who are working to make their brand communicate better, stand out, and engage audiences to grow their business. For more on Sussner, visit Sussnercom.