Firebrand

I delare it: Breast Cancer owns the colour pink.

Watch out Lasenza Girl and the singer Pink. You can’t trademark the entire spectrum of a colour, but the Breast Cancer movement has done as close a job as possible through branding. A quick disclaimer: I worked for the Canadian Cancer Society in the past, and my family has been very involved with them. They are not the Breast Cancer Society, but cancer as a cause is very close to my heart.

It came to me when I was watching the Patriots – Vikings game two weekends ago. There was a breast cancer awareness drive with the NFL where players and coaches were wearing various apparel that had colours changed to pink: shoes, gloves, brims of hats. College sports and Major League Baseball are running other pink gear promotions. I was watching the football game with two other young guys; we all knew it was for breast cancer before ever seeing a logo. We are not the typical target audience the Breast Cancer Society targets for their drives, and as far as I know, none of us had any family affected by breast cancer. If people removed from your target audience recognize an entire colour as a symbol of your brand, congratulations, you own that colour.

It speaks to the power of coordinated symbolic branding for decades. Pink would not have become the symbol it is if the Susan G. Komen organization and other organizations had not been so galvanized around using pink consistently. If they had been wishy washy like the majority of companies are and changed to a burgundy 10 years into the movement than it would have half the power it does now.

It makes me wonder about brands that use a combination of colours as their brand symbology. Obviously there is more opportunity for differentiation of branding, the number of colours in the pantone swatch book squared. But I wonder if that combination waters it down the effect of having a colour as a brand symbol. It also shows that it pays to be bold. If breast cancer’s symbolic colours were yellow and blue like that of the Canadian Cancer Society would we have recognized it in that football game. There wasn’t much competition for pink because it is gender specific, hard to print and can be harsh on the eyes if over used. The pink story is akin to the story of the Chrysler muscle cars of the 60s. Lime green and “plum crazy purple” became symbols for Chrysler cars like the Dodge Challenger and the Plymouth Baracuda because not many people wanted to paint their Mustangs and Camaros those bold colours. But those colours became a call to arms for Mopar fans, and have resurfaced recently.

It would be nice if we all could own a colour for our own movements.

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By Colin Finkle. Colin Finkle is an award winning industrial designer who works with large multinational brands everyday designing retail displays for FX Displays in Toronto, Canada. He is the principle designer at Firebrand Creative. He also writes for AMD’s FireUser.com blog.

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The views expressed on this weblog are mine alone and do not necessairly reflect the views of my employer, FX Displays.