Show notes

Episode 89 - Colours

Esther

Good morning. And welcome to the Monday morning marketing podcast. I'm Esther,

Melanie

and I'm... Surprise, Melanie.

Esther

And today we're joined by Sue Thompson, founder and owner of Catch Design Management here today to talk about colours. You're welcome, Sue.

Sue 

Hello and thank you very much for having me.

Esther

Thank you for joining us. So colours, why are they important in business and in marketing?

Sue 

Well, I do think they are important as really. I think you only get one chance to make a first impression, and it's really vital that your business has that really good stand out with your competition. And I think colour is one of the key factors of that to help you get that stand out.

Melanie

So today I was doing a start your own business course. And in this group, as usual, I was asked about the colours for their branding and their logo. It's so hard to pick what is going to be suitable without trying, because the worry they have is they're copying their competitors. So how can you allay the fears, especially when you're in a similar sector and they all seem to have similar colours? How can you allay the fears of new businesses like that?

Sue 

I mean, everywhere pretty much, I think, is a crowded market. And I don't think you're ever going to be able to create something that's going to have such amazing standout in certain sectors. But doing your research on your competitors, I think, is really vital to make sure that you are aware of what is out there. So you can at least look at different colours to have that little bit of a bit of standout. So I think looking at researching your competitors and thinking about what would appeal to target audiences as well. I'm working with many clients in, for example, renewable energy sector. And it's a swamp with Blues and Greens. So we're just trying to move to the other side of the colour spectrum, if you like, just to enable to have that little bit of stand out. So looking at the market, looking at your competitors, I think, is probably the most important thing.

Esther

Yeah. It's funny you mentioned that because was I at an event when we were still allowed to go to events and I was talking to an estate agent or a real estate agent whose colour scheme is pink. Now, normally with an estate agent here in the UK, anyway, in Ireland, it's Blues and because they portray because all colours have psychology behind them, don't they see?

Sue 

Absolutely.

Esther

Yeah. So Blues sort of portray like trust and trustworthy and you can go with them and they're not going to sell you a dollhouse. But this guy wanted to, like you said, stand out from the market and went with pink. And now everything that he has, including his ties that he wears, are pink. So things like that to make you stand out from the market can be risky. But do you think they pay off

Sue 

I think they can. I think certainly in that particular sector, they've got an extra few metres to go to get that trust and integrity and honesty with their customers. So they have to really make sure that they have to work maybe a little bit harder. So having something a bit of a USP like that to have that stand out, it's a good ice breaker. It's a good opportunity to talk about why you came up with that concept and that idea. And then you're in a conversation with someone and therefore that conversion of turning them into a customer possibly is a little bit easier because you've broken the ice a little.

Melanie

So we're talking about branding colours. But you can also take people through a journey on your branding as well, can't you? So you set up a website, which is obviously what Esther would do. And then you'd create a journey, a sales funnel as long as you keep maybe the logo. Could you change the colours of that as people are going through the journey? Or is that a big, big no-no?

Sue 

No, no, I think really. When you think about it, developing a logo doesn't have to be a solitary colour. It can be a palette of colours.

Melanie

Okay.

Sue 

And when you've got that nice contrasting palettes of colours, that gives you so much opportunity to be more creative. I've got two colours, for example, two main colours in my logo and white and black, if you like, as background. So I've always got that bit of flexibility to go very pink or go very Orange or go either way, which I'd like to do. So having sort of an array of colours that sort of are underpinned around your brand, I think, is a really nice way to go. And certainly when we do branding for clients, that's what we would offer. So you've got sort of maybe different hues of a blue or slightly different Greens within that colour palette. Then you might have a really nice, bright, completely different colour that is like your sort of wow colour that you might want to use for more in your face promotional aspect. So when you've got that sort of palette of colours and the brand guidelines that should sit behind it, it gives creators like Esther on their website or whether you're creating a logo to put on a Polo shirt, you've got some tolerances of how you can use that logo and the different colours that will still be associated with your brand.

Esther

Yes. It's important that you said there about the guidelines. So your design guidelines, how can those be used, say, when you're printing something off or when you send it to your web designer? Should you just send them your logo or should they be asking for more things, or should you automatically send them your branding guidelines?

Sue 

Yeah. I mean, I would always advise clients that we work with. We try and put together. This varies. You can go up to a 30-page document covering off every single aspect of how your logo can be used. Or we tend to find some of the smaller businesses that we work with. They do want to just have those colours. They want to know what the colour references are for print and full digital. They want to know what font you've allocated and how that needs to be used. We try and keep it relatively user friendly for the particular clients that we use, so they can then pass that information onto their printers to show the white space around the logo or more complicated ways where we can actually show how it shouldn't be used. It can't be squashed, it can't be elongated, that kind of element. So all of that little bit of information can be put into a brand guideline and passed on to anybody externally who might be using your logo.

Melanie

Interesting. How about. The perception that you have as a business owner when you're first starting up? I know when I first started, I didn't want to look like I was too polished and too accomplished. I don't know why that's just the way I felt at the time. I wanted to look a bit raw and unfinished. Would you say that was a good way to start, or do you think you should go out and go get them and be top notch and professional and all bells and whistles from the get go?

Sue 

I kind of know where you're coming from because I think you want to give that impression that you are an honest person and sometimes that kind of way people want to sort of put that forward. Contrary to that, I'm also a great believer, though, in being looking professional as professional as it can. One of my sort of anecdotal stories I like to share with people is that someone came to your door and they put a sticker on their jumper and written BT on it, and you're not going to believe they're from British Telecom. You're not going to believe that they are a trained engineer coming to deal with you because they've just scrolled it onto a sticker and stuck it on their chest. So to me, that's what's important. You only get one chance to make a first impression. So if somebody comes to my door and they've got a badge on with their branded logo on and it looks professional, albeit, however, that may manifest if it kind of looks a bit rugged or rustic, that may be that brand's choice, but you look like you put some effort in you look like you've actually turned up, and I want to be able to say to people, you can go to my website, my Instagram page, my Pinterest board, and you'll find the same brand there and you'll have confidence and be assured that you actually are dealing with the same person and the person that you want to deal with. That you've been doing your research on. So I think that's really important. So I think from the very beginning of any business, you want to give that really professional persona really out to make sure people understand that you are the real deal and that it's worth investing in your company's time.

Melanie

I do have a follow-up question just very quick because you said the magic word brand persona. So if you created a brand persona but had no idea of the colours to use, could I give you my brand persona and you could suggest brand colours?

Sue 

Yeah, definitely the way I approach branding, we have quite a long I don't want to say long, detailed questionnaire, and I kind of make my clients sit down and kind of complete that because often it's more about what you don't like as much as what you do like that can help us to gather that information and develop that kind of colorway, which we think will be suitable for your audience. I'm as guilty as anyone else. I think when you're in your own business, you think you know your customer, you think you know your audience, and sometimes you're a bit too close to it. So sometimes having an external perspective can actually help to bring that together and sort of develop that together. Obviously, I would say if I was setting up in a business, I would say, yes, go and see a professional, let them help you develop your brand, because often it's the right way to go. It will give you a lot more return on investment on it by actually getting it right from the very beginning. But of course, if you have ideas, if you have colours, you absolutely hate or you've got colours or some sketches drawn out of things that you do like, they all come into the mix as well, because ultimately you have to love your logo. And if you don't, you're never going to get over that. So it needs to be sort of come from you as much as anything else.

Melanie

So you said if it's a colour that you love, but what if it's one that you really love? But it's not going to resonate with your audience.

Sue 

Again, that's all about conversations. We often will develop maybe two or three routes of logos in various different colourways. And we might find that the customer will like that, but we won't often share with them things that we know are already out there or share them with the things that we know that just won't work. A lot of people will say, I like, I don't know, pink and green or something. That's probably a bad example, because I don't think they are actually quite nice together, but they might give me some colour combinations and then say, Well, that's how I want to do it. And we can kind of bring them back from that to say yes, but it doesn't print very well or it's got a really bad contrast. And we have to think about accessibility. You can't have pink copy on a very light green background because it won't be legible. So there's all things that hopefully they've come to a professional to give a professional opinion and sort of manifest something that will work with an audience. Hopefully they're target audience that we've already discussed with them.

Melanie

Okay. I'm going to talk about the elephant in the room here.

Sue 

Is it the pink and green brand?

Melanie

Yeah. Behind you. It looks really good.

Sue 

It's a pink and white and Orange logo up there. I was just trying to think of really contrasting colours. I've got a lovely Orange sofa over there I could have brought out.

Melanie

I feel loud,

Esther

but that's an important thing too. To stay on brand you were saying there about people can go to your Instagram and your Pinterest, et cetera and see the same design scheme throughout. So what advice would you give people who are just starting out and playing around with the colours? What should they have on those very visual platforms before they decide on a logo? Or should they avoid them until they have their logo and their colour scheme in place?

Sue 

It's a very chicken and egg situation because obviously you start building on your socials, but as I've mentioned before, you only get one chance to make that first impression. So if you've got something that's not quite good enough on your Instagram page or you're not sure you've just got an empty egg on your Twitter page, you're not going to get the traffic. You're not going to get that audience to come to you. So I would secure the domain, secure the names, keep them all, get ready. But don't go until you've got everything in place, because then you can go in a really professional way and get that information out there. So people come to your page knowing it looks as good as it can look. And obviously it's a new page. Content is going to be built on it, but they can see the foundation blocks are correct and are in place.

Melanie

So we've been talking so far about new businesses. But what about existing businesses who after a couple of years, they feel they need to do a bit of a rebrand or even a refresh. So they're not completely rebranding. How would they go about that? What kind of certain things do they need to take into account before, during and after?

Sue 

I think I'd always question why they want to do that initially. And certainly I think in the last two to three years, I think most people have changed the way they brand to consider very much how they need to be seen on social media. So a lot of very long logos have kind of disappeared now and become very more compact and round or square to make it a lot easier to be in the social media, avatars and the roundals that exist. So I think going back to more maybe traditional companies where they have had that kind of long, linear Typographical type logo. Then I think there is a place for that kind of redevelopment. But I think there's got to be something like that. You've got to take an essence of what they have already to try and alleviate that confusion with your audience. You need to have that consistency of brand coming across. And a change of brand or an upgrade of brand is a PR story or a positive story that you can put out there to say that you've done this. And these are the reasons why. So I think you need to still have an essence of what you had before and move that into something more contemporary.

Esther

That's a good answer. I like that last bit there. I've got to say, the experience I have of people rebranding has been because they've either changed audience or their message, or some people just feel they know what the company does. And they've got some new PR team in, and they've decided to refresh the message entirely. Still does exactly the same thing. But. There's this ongoing mental perception that the outside audience gets. This is what this company does, because they recognise the logo, they recognise the colours. But when they sort of do a formal relaunch, then you can sort of reemphasize exactly what you do, how you do it, where you do it, why you do it, which is obviously another motivation. And I think although you're the same company, I've got one company in my head here, but I really shouldn't say who. But you got this one company that really wants to promote and push themselves in a more positive way, perhaps. But a rebrand is what's needed. So. They're still essentially the same company, but they're just trying to refocus. Is that still ideal?

Sue 

Well, I think if they feel that it's necessary. I mean, I think when we talk about reinventing ourselves or reinventing this business, a logo is. Significant. But a small part of many, many different conversations and many, many different marketing discussions that might need to go on. So ultimately, if the brand changes, a lot of the changes and the perception to the audience will be in the strapline or be in the associated copy that's on the website, it will be in the press release that's gone out. It will be in the social media messages. So there's a whole other layer, if you like, of opportunity, where you can really spell that out, where often that existing look, that visual look that you've created with a logo, possibly updating that giving it a bit of a facelift would be really beneficial. But the essence of everything else needs to come into play as well. So it's not just a singular thing, in my opinion, many parts.

Melanie

Thank you.

Esther

Yeah. You've mentioned a lot of interesting points there about accessibility and colour blindness. Do you find that a lot of companies are now coming to you and going, okay. So I've realised that these two colours together are alienating the percentage of the population that are colorblind to those two colours. Or do you find people are actually realising that this is an issue or could be an issue and are coming to rectify it? Or do you think people are just so stuck in their ways that it's like, no, these are my Brown colours too bad, like it or lump it.

Sue 

I think a combination of all of those, to be honest, I think there's a lot of public sector that have a certain number of accessibility boxes they have to tick. So they're the ones that volunteer and come along and say, look, we know our website is not very accessible and we need to comply. So how can you help us to do that? But that often is more about text on the page rather than maybe the brand. The brand is sort of a secondary element, and obviously there are certain compliances that they have to do. Other people, I think, are kind of switching on a little bit more to that on the sort of alt Tags and sort of describing imagery more so. And again, that's sort of correlation with the brand. It's not just the brand that's often an issue for them. Ultimately, my aim is to try and get brands to a place where you don't need the writing. You don't need the strap line. You don't need all the manifesto of what it is. It should be the round, the actual whatever it is that you've created is strong enough to be seen on its own. And people know who they are. I mean, a bad example is like CocaCola, obviously that is written, it says CocaCola, but the look and feel of that, you know exactly where you are with it the Apple logo. You know exactly where you are. You don't need all of the bits that go with that to explain.

Esther

Yeah, like the Nike Tick or the Naked.

Sue 

If I can try and get something like that, and that's the kind of thing that I would put into the avatar and social media. So that's the thing that's being seen all the time, I think, is an important way, and that is relatively a good accessibility point, because that is a visual thing that you can explain what it is, which I'll see what we want people to understand who may have issues on visibility, for example.

Esther

Brilliant. So have an icon or text or both on your logo. Choose your colours wisely. Go with an expert. So many takeaway points that we could reinforce here. What would you want people to know? Basic stuff or the golden rule for colours in marketing? What would be your top tip?

Sue 

I think it's understanding that target audience, I think understanding your competitor and how they interact with our audience and liking the colours that you want if you want colours, the particular colours that you really like, and if they are really what you want to use, expressing that to your designer. So at least those can be featured in the palette. I think it's important, as I've already mentioned, that you love your logo, because if you don't, you'll always be trying to use something else. There are a lot of really useful tools out there that can help you get from the very beginning to a position of having some ideas of what you do want. And then maybe speaking to a professional and Canva particularly do a colour palette guide. They've got lots of colour information on there, so you can actually look at the colour wheel and have those compares and contrast of looking at colours together, you can submit imagery into Canva and it will pull down the colours from that photograph. So again, you might have something you've already created, or maybe particularly, it's a creative business that you've got colours that are in existing things that you're making could be colours that you can start to pull out and think about how you can develop a brand or logo from that. So I think there's lots of hot tips that we sort of give people, but I think conversing with someone trying to think about what it is that you want to do and trying to have that contrast with your competitors.

Melanie

I just wanted to ask in my head, I feel like we've been talking about a lot of solid colours. Would you ever agree that colours and patterns like dots or dashes or squares or triangles? Do they work as a brand as well?

Sue 

I think it's always something you can associate with more of a logo if you want to bring any of those kind of textures or backgrounds, I think into your brand that's entirely up to you. I think it's obviously fitting that into the time and a place you might find that the other side of your business card could be a completely mishmash of your colours, but in sort of a texture or pattern format. But laying copy onto that or important information about your contact information would probably make it quite difficult to read. So I think you can bring some fun. You can bring some elements of movement. All of those things can be brought in. But I think having that kind of finite, simple logo opportunity that can stand alone separately, I think, is important. For example, on my website, I've got a lot of Orange and pink tints that I put over for photos to kind of bring the brand colours in and basically hide my photograph a tinted colour. But then it all blends in with the brand. So I've kind of used colour in that way, but anything more complicated, like you mentioned dots, stripes, I think it can be a bit. It's not my kind of look and feel that I would like. But if that's what the client wants we we'll discuss it

Melanie

whatever the client wants, just go wild.

Esther

Really?

Melanie

Thank you for that. It's really such a wide area. I've mentioned colours and dots and dashes. And you came out with all this techno Speaker I would never have grasped without your assistance. So thank you for coming on, Sue.

Sue 

No. My pleasure. It's been really good. Thank you.

Esther

Yeah. And if you would like to connect with Sue, where can people find you?

Sue 

Well, everywhere. Really. I try and spread myself across all of the social media platforms, but on Instagram, I'm just catch designs. And pretty much it's the same handle across all of the platforms. And on LinkedIn, it's just Sue Thompson, UK

Esther

Brilliant. Thanks again, Sue, for coming in and agreeing to talk to us today about colours. It's been very interesting and very eye opening. And I hope people have learned a lot like we have today. Thank you very much. See you next week, guys.

Melanie

Bye bye. For now.