Comments on: Why is orange such a popular marketing color?

Question: Why is orange such a popular marketing color?

PostIronyIsNotaMyth — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:25:03 -0800

Anybody know why bright orange is such a popular color when it comes to branding or advertising products?

By: Blacksun

Blacksun — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:29:19 -0800

Apparently it's all to do with a "...a new dawn in attitude..."

By: k8t

k8t — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:39:55 -0800

It is a big "pop" color to attract your eye. Even though they may end up buying the blue or black sweater, the orange caught your eye to the table.

By: Justinian

Justinian — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:50:28 -0800

Bright orange is one of the most visible colors and probably the one most likely to catch your eye; remember that they make life jackets and hunting vests out of bright orange. Whether the color immediately catches your eye because we associate it with "LOOK - IMPORTANT" things like life jackets or we use them for life jackets because it immediately catches your eye is probably irrelevant to the question at hand.

By: Justinian

Justinian — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:54:01 -0800

Safety Orange. Note that the example pictured is an EasyJet airplane with the logo in, yes, bright safety orange.

The article notes that one reason orange is often used is that it contrasts so well against blue sky, orange being the complementary contrast to blue.

By: davejay

davejay — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 16:03:07 -0800

Because nothing rhymes with it?

By: gjc

gjc — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 16:12:27 -0800

And because it's the current fad.

By: birdherder

birdherder — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 16:35:03 -0800

A few years ago I was in a meeting where our ad agency was pitching concepts for a new color and layout identity. They were really pitching the orange look very hard. I really liked it because it stood out from the others and especially the competition. The senior executive in the room from my company did not like it because it was too bright and no one else was using orange. So we stayed with blue.

About six months later I started to notice several new logos and corporate identities changing to orange. The most notable was the pre-implosion MCI and then when ATT wireless became Cingular and spent all that money branding itself away from ATT blue (only to come full circle last year and go back to ATT blue, however, orange still plays a dominant role in the color palette, probably for continuity but also since it pops against good old ATT blue). There are psychological elements for every color, but in many cases it comes down to being a fad.

Now I'm noticing more companies starting to incorporate the color green.

By: tmcw

tmcw — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 16:55:17 -0800

I agree with gjc. "Color symbolism" is 99% B.S., a piss-poor simplification of art and psychology meant to make marketing people feel informed.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:05:52 -0800

Because patriotic people of Dutch background will choose the orange product over the competition.

By: bingo

bingo — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:10:52 -0800

It's because it's the color of fire, to which we have a primal, built-in reaction.

Duh.

By: bendy

bendy — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:30:08 -0800

Orange is the new black.

By: Phire

Phire — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:35:09 -0800

Also 'cause there aren't too many controversies associated with it? Or maybe I'm just ignorant...

/guessfilter.

By: kidsleepy

kidsleepy — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:48:40 -0800

Print Magazine did a story about the color orange in their May/June 2006 issue. I can't find the entire article online, but here's a summary:

Field Work
As a branding tool for democracy, the color orange had a history that made it especially appropriate for Ukraine's "Orange Revolution." BY ANDRÁS SZANTÓ

By: Cat Pie Hurts

Cat Pie Hurts — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:53:50 -0800

Every year, Pantone, the Bilderbergers and Elvis get together to choose the new year's colors.

The big pop (stand out) colors seem to be on the opposite end of the color wheel from the big color.*

* note that this is pure speculation on my part, but it makes sense to me. If the world is blue, orange will be that much more striking.

By: kidsleepy

kidsleepy — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:54:57 -0800

further googling revealed this excerpt from "The Color of Revolution" by Andras Szanto:

'As far back as anyone can remember, orange was the 'look at me' color, found on road signs and heavy industrial equipment. Orange and plastic, it must be said, were made for each other. But the color embodied a Zen-like transcendence that also endeared it to the avant-garde. From A Clockwork Orange to Andy Warhol's screen prints . . . using orange was a way of declaring, 'We're modern!' Designers claimed it was the visual equivalent of an exclamation point.

And so it was until the 1990s, when corporations in search of a hipper image gave orange mainstream legitimacy. In 1994, Federal Express abbreviated its name to FedEx and combined orange with offbeat purple for its new look. . . . Orange popped up on Apple computers and redesigned Volkswagen Beetles, then spread like a virus to sneakers, toothbrushes, baby strollers, golf balls, and innumerable Web sites. . . .

Home Depot's orange logo had a utilitarian tint, but . . . it beckoned the tool-belt-toting individualist in every suburban home. Bit by bit, the color of safety morphed into an emblem of ballsy Bobo capitalism. . . .

This triumphant narrative swelled to a crescendo during 17 days in November 2004, when the 'Orange Revolution' erupted on the streets of Kiev, spawning a vast tent city and an orgasm of orange hats, T-shirts, bandannas, scarves, and neckties. Ukrainians wore the color to protest the government's effort to falsify election results and steal the presidential election from opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko.'

By: gjc

gjc — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:56:16 -0800

kidsleepy- good call.

I just received a copy of my "Illinois Bell/Ameritech/SBC/AT&T" landline bill, and it now has lots of orange. I think orange is now played, the next big color is going to be that shade of dark pink that's almost orange that they use in those colorblind tests.

By: gjc

gjc — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:58:53 -0800

Hmm- and I remember that obnoxious orange was big in the A&F, Old Navy scene back in the 90's. Now those clowns (me) are martini swilling people trying to influence us clowns. (Pure guesswork.)

By: ninazer0

ninazer0 — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:30:09 -0800

Related story: I used to look after promotional merchandise for a variety of large corporate customers. One of the largest - a bank - went for employee t-shirts in white, aqua and orange because their research indicated that these were "power" colours that would make them stand out in the marketplace. However, its a combination that rarely looks good on people and they eventually switched to basic black on black. Power colours or not, apparently their research failed to take into account basic vanity and the concept that bankers seem to want to look like Darth Vader.

By: Mwongozi

Mwongozi — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:36:30 -0800

> Because nothing rhymes with it?

Lozenge?

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:01:07 -0800

whore minge?

But aqua & orange for clothes? They'd have to be about the worst colours around, in terms of how the reflected light off clothes interacts with peoples' complexions. Some yellows might be worse, but not by much.

By: apostrophe

apostrophe — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:26:31 -0800

i don't know why, but i'll tell you that orange looks terrible printed 4-color process. if you're going to make it your company color, better be prepared to spring for the pantone ink.

By: TheSecretDecoderRing

TheSecretDecoderRing — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:16:26 -0800

Door hinge? Okay, it's two words, but it's pretty close.

Maybe it's because the generation that grew up during Nickelodeon's infancy is now in charge of a lot of marketing departments.. Or maybe not.

I've noticed it's become a trendy color in the sports world also, with more teams incorporating orange in their color schemes, either as the base or as contrast. Some pull it off better than others.

The NBA's Phoenix Suns, who always had purple-with-orange road jerseys, unveiled orange-with-gray alternates in '03 due in part to a corporate tie-in with Home Depot. I guess it's just a cyclical thing, but I'm not sure if we'll ever see powder-blue baseball uniforms again anytime soon.

By: Oriole Adams

Oriole Adams — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:44:47 -0800

General Foods used orange to package Sanka way back in 1923 because it was a "stand out," attention-getting color. As part of their promotion they gave away orange-handled coffee pots to restaurants and diners for use with Sanka (so servers could tell the difference between the pot with regular coffee and the one with decaf).

By: oxford blue

oxford blue — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:54:49 -0800

Good enough for snooty 500 euro scarves, good enough for me?