Why brands are abandoning their colors

episode 6 of technorama my nebula original series is out now more about that at the end of the video what's the brand color of samsung dark blue right huawei red opal green xiaomi orange you know this right everyone knows this except go to samsung.com right now and the logo you'll see there is black and white with not a touch of samsung's own blue to be seen anywhere on the page go to oppo.com and again no green to be seen anywhere it's black and white all the way vivo.com well the only blue that i can find is from the logo of zeiss not vivo theirs is black and white these brands of course still use colors in some places like in the so-called fav icon of these same pages weirdly which we'll get back to in a little bit but more and more often you'll just see them going fully monochrome or demoting their brand color to a simple accent color instead of letting it dominate everything so in this episode of the story behind series let's talk about why brands use colors in the first place and why secretly most of them can't actually wait to get rid of them [Music] you have probably seen one of these logo timelines before usually in the context of someone being upset that a brand is losing all of its originality and yes we'll talk about simplification in general in this video a little bit as well but i wanted to focus on colors in particular which goes beyond just simplification and to understand this trend we have to start with some of the first logos and brand identities that these companies gave themselves when they got started which tend to be either quite colorful or rather ornamental or sometimes even both and this makes sense a small company just starting out really has two goals with their brand first they want to stand out from the crowd and they want to be remembered at any cost and since clear colors and ornaments are a great way to stand out and to be remembered new companies that are often lost in the sea of others can almost not afford to not use them and second the company needs to very clearly and also quickly introduce what the company and their products are all about they're unknown to most people so they need to introduce themselves at a glance and clear shapes can describe what a company does right away while colors are typically associated with certain qualities and emotions so brands pick their colors to communicate what they are all about orange and yellow for youthful and dynamic green for calm and peaceful blue for something that is solid reliable and technology driven red for something that is fast moving and maybe even a little bit aggressive etc colors are of course more subtle than explicit shapes but they do make us feel a certain way about a company on a subconscious level which small brands can use to quickly establish themselves and their values as they introduce themselves to new audiences so that's why smaller companies do it they need to be memorable right out of the gate so why would bigger companies then go ahead and throw all of that away well first they simply don't need them as much anymore as they are not unknown entities that need to introduce themselves all the time everyone knows who samsung or apple is and what they do so brand colors become kind of optional second as a company grows and starts to do many many things its logo and brand then has to start fitting all of those many different products services and activities the logo has to squeeze into big and small places it has to work on physical products which use all sorts of colors and materials where the logo has to match the product design and the manufacturing process it has to fit digital products of all kinds etc many of which might not fall under one consistent umbrella anymore oh and of course brands also start collaborating with many other brands which means that the logos have to become even more flexible it's hard to stick to one specific color and one elaborate shape at this point and to make it fit all of that now some brands like anker solve this by launching a new brand with a new logo for every new product category that they have so that they can remain distinct and fitting to the actual product line but others like apple and samsung just use one logo for everything so almost by definition the logo has to become as abstract as possible that means either a shape that's just made to be as simple as possible or a brand name written out in a simple font and it also means abstracting the color away as well and letting it change based on what it appears on and third while a bright color is memorable it is usually not very elegant so it's typically brands who want to be seen as premium that lose their colors first apple was one of the first major phone brands to go fully monochrome and since then others like samsung oppo and vivo have been leaning into it as well as they're all trying to establish themselves more and more as upscale brands nothing and sony of course started fully black and white as they both positioned themselves as designer brands from the start while brands like real me and xiaomi typically still use their brand colors in most of their materials for example their websites now these two have lately also been using less and less of their bright colors as they have grown up but they still usually want to communicate heavily that they offer aggressive prices so going fully black and white might just send a bit of a wrong message i remember this case study about ryanair in university where apparently the company intentionally paints their cabins with the ugliest shade of yellow and makes all of its marketing materials look cheap on purpose which in part was chosen to remind consumers that this in fact is a cheap flight that they're on that is great value and there's a hint of that in realme's and xiaomi's branding in my opinion as well these aren't intentionally ugly of course unlike ryanair but they do aim to be a little bit more playful and dynamic than just super premium which helps them clearly communicate that affordability is still a key part of their brands that said whenever they do launch a very expensive product well looky lookie that's a black and white logo right there cause premium so actually they really just use a mix of both depending on the context and in fact a lot of these brands do they use both the monochrome and the colorful logos depending on the context so let's talk about which one they use when so black and white are typically used in places like a brand's own website which we've already discussed a brand's own launch event or other similar get-togethers and also often its own stores and dedicated shelves in retailers especially the high-end ones meanwhile the color logo is typically used in cheaper busier spaces where there are a lot of distractions oppo and vivo are well known for painting streets green and blue across south and southeast asia for example where standing out is hard and important and as i've mentioned the browser tabs almost always use colors even nothing does despite their logo being monochrome and on social media too most brands use a colorful profile picture as well and the reason for these differences is that the logos have a completely different purpose in each place colors are often used when people have to identify one brand among many others be it on a busy street or a busy social media feed or a busy browser with many tabs in that case color often helps to stand out and be memorable meanwhile when you are already watching a brand's launch event or you are in their physical store or on their website they have your attention completely already their goal then is no longer to stand out from the crowd but rather to convince you that their brand is fancy while also letting their products shine making everything else neutrally colored while only leaving the products themselves in color is a great way to draw your attention to those and to make them look even more exciting and it's really as simple as that for colors and to finish up i have one more question for you do you like japanese movies series anime science fiction that kind of stuff if yes i've just made a thing that i think you will really enjoy it's episode 6 of technorama that just came out my big budget nebula original series which is all about film analysis and putting movie tropes into cultural context and my last episode is all about japan and how their science fiction has found a uniquely positive take on robots and technology in general we cover classics from the early days but also works like akira and neon genesis evangelion so if you like japanese cinema i think you will really enjoy this i've made five other episodes each about a different movie topic as well before i think they all turned out great and they are all available on our streaming service nebula which hosts tons of originals from educational youtubers including me but also all of our regular videos and free and sometimes early access and signing up helps us support our work curiosity stream hasn't specifically sponsored this video but they are a channel sponsor and the best way to get nebula is through the curiosity stream in the link in the description where you get both services for a full year for 15 bucks that's a ton of great content for the money i hope you enjoyed and i'll see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: TechAltar

Views: 564,987

Keywords: Apple, Samsung, OPPO, Vivo, Huawei, Xiaomi, Poco, Realme, logo, smartphone, phone, tech, tech companies, brands, black and white, colors, colours, logos, icon, icons, history, logo history, use of color, branding, branding element, marketing, events, websites, ads, stores, shops, story behind, the story behind, brand strategy, rebranding

Id: hg4l5vuqHXc

Length: 9min 2sec (542 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 19 2022