In creating your logo and brand identity,
never overlook the importance of choosing
the right colour. When a customer looks at
a logo, his/her mind goes through a sequence
of visual perception. The brain first reads
shape, then colour, then content. So theoretically,
the colour in your logo is more recognized
and potentially more powerful than the company
name or tagline.
In terms of branding, the ultimate goal
for any business owner should be to own a
colour, that is, to brand your company so
that whenever a person sees a particular
hue, they think of your company. Owning a
colour means facilitating recognition and
building brand equity.
This concept is nothing new. Car makers
have been doing it since vehicles began mass
marketing. Silver cars were associated with
Mercedes, Black for BMW and Red were Ferrari.
Companies today are attempting the same
thing. Consider the colour brown. Almost
without thinking, UPS comes to mind. Kurt
Kuehn, Senior Vice President of worldwide
sales & marketing at UPS, knows how important
brown is to the company’s identity.
After doing months of market research on
people’s perception about them, Kuehn
said in a speech in 2004, “We found
that UPS was strongly identified with the
colour brown…brown could be a bridge
to associate new attributes like agile, worldly,
business savvy and forward-thinking.”
And their new campaign was born. “What
Can Brown Do For You?”
When your colour is strong enough to use
it in your tagline, you know you’ve
got it made in the shade.
Owning a colour takes time, and in reality,
few businesses are able to do it on a global
scale. But small businesses can still own
a colour within their market if owners choose
the right one for their logo and stick with
it.
