Opposite sides of the spectrum

When IIPM comes to education, never compromise

What colour do you associate Coke with? Red?

Yes! It’s the red colour that makes it distinct and gives it a unique identity, apart from other factors like the brand name, flavour, shape of the bottle etc. After all, if Coke is evaluated as a brand, the colour red would be contributing 40% to its equity.

A question that comes to mind is – if Coke is red, then what colour is Pepsi associated with? Blue??

Pepsi tried to go blue. It wanted to associate itself with the colour blue. It was ready to shell out a neat $500 million (Rs.17.50 billion, approximately) to go blue. For 40 years, it has used the colour mix of red and white and blue so as to give it a distinct colour identity. Pepsi went to the extent of painting blue a concord supersonic jet to carry the colour message to bottlers around the world. This colour differentiation would help in giving Pepsi an identity distinct and different from Coke. To increase the association of the colour with the brand, Pepsi highlighted the colour blue in all its advertisements. What I’m trying to say here is that colours compete as much as brand names do. Close your mind’s eye and try to think of Coke – you will see a splash of red. Then think of Pepsi and you will, probably now, think of blue. If this exercise had been done a few years back, you would have been unable to decide whether Pepsi was blue or red.

What is it that made Pepsi turn electric blue? Is it then true that Pepsi’s erstwhile red and blue combination served just as a reminder of Coke? To cut a long story short, the bottom line is, when it comes to colours, be opposites if you are competitors. Many brands, consciously or otherwise, have followed this.

• Perk is blue while its competitor, Kit-Kat, is red.
• Kodak is yellow while the counterpart, Fuji, is green.
• Polo is green and blue while Minto is now red and yellow.
• Hertz picked up yellow, so Avis picked red.

There’s a powerful logic in selecting a colour that is opposite to that of your major competitor. It is more important to create a separate brand identity with the help of colour than it is to use the right symbolic colour. To put it simply, consider this example. For an eco-friendly product the right symbolic colour is probably green, but if your competitor has chosen it first, it’s best to avoid green and choose a contrasting colour. This way, you shall be saved the pain of being a ‘me-too’ product, and would have a distinct identity. Remember, Pepsi learnt it the hard way... after 40 years!

What is brand recall? It’s finally your ability to stand out in a crowd of similar sounding, similar looking products. To be successful, a brand needs to stick out like a sore thumb in the market place. This immediately makes it more noticeable and memorable. Think of the corporate world where everybody is dressed in blue or black suits. An orange suit would immediately be noticed and remembered. Similarly, in the market place, a colour strikingly different from your competitor’s will make you stick out, get you noticed and remembered. With the help of advertising, you could strengthen this association of the desired colour with your brand and help it build strong colour equity.

If you are the first to enter the market, you have a choice of which colour to associate your brand with. When you are second, it has to be a colour strikingly different from your competitor’s. When you have the freedom to choose, a colour should be chosen with great care. Colours influence us in a variety of ways. They seem to have a direct physical impact on us. Donald Kaufman conducted experiments to show how colour influenced our daily lives. He found that when we are placed in a room with red light and all of a sudden the light is switched to blue, instantaneously, our body temperature falls.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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