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Killer Campaigns Volume Four: The Color of Branding
By Jerry Bader (c) 2010

Web video is a communication technique that provides a
viewer-experience that delivers several big advantages over
broadcast: first, the length of your presentation is for the
most part a non issue other than the degree to which your
content and delivery holds your audience's attention; second,
the cost to produce and present professional online video is far
more affordable than broadcast; and third, Web video provides
the opportunity to intellectually and emotionally engage your
audience with a memorable viewing experience, and involve them
physically by prompting direct-response action. On the other
hand, broadcast does provide a mass audience, but not
necessarily an attentive one like your website.

As we have seen in previous installments of Killer Campaigns,
the commercial broadcast industry, despite its economic and time
constraints, has plenty of good examples of techniques that can
be used effectively in Web video campaigns, if you understand
how certain elements affect an audience.

It's easy to misread a commercial's true marketing
effectiveness and assume the big flashy special effects and
grandiose production stunts are what makes a commercial work,
but in fact those kinds of things generally only make a
commercial more expensive. True the big-deal aspects of a
production may attract attention, but it's the small things
that are the most important, the most effective and the most
affordable. It's the things you hardly notice like writing,
casting, music, performance, and campaign consistency that have
the most impact on a presentation's ability to communicate,
influence and persuade. It's the production techniques to which
the audience pays little attention that maximizes
sale-conversions and increases the bottom-line. Take nuts for
example.

Color Me Nuts

Nuts, the edible kind, not the irritating relative kind, are
about as generic as you can get. So how do you go about creating
a marketing campaign for something as mundane as nuts?

The Wonderful Pistachio "Get Crackin" video campaign and micro
site got a lot of things right. This series of videos use the
same format, style, message, and color in order to turn a
nondescript, seemingly unbrandable generic product into a hip,
sexy brand. Each element of the presentation re-enforces the
other leaving a lasting brand impression without blowing
anything up, or spending a fortune creating animated baby
skateboarders.

One element that turns this campaign into a great campaign
rather than just a very good one is its use of color. What could
be simpler?

Pistachios Newly Weds Do It Video
(http://videos.sitepronews.com/video/1397/Pistachios-Newly-Weds-Do-It)

The campaign's consistent use of a signature color palette,
green and black, combined with a great tagline and a series of
clever sketches deliver the kind of memorable impression that
prompts instant recognition and impulse-purchasing when seen on
store shelves.

Pistachios Dominatrix Do It Video
(http://videos.sitepronews.com/video/1398/Pistachios-Dominatrix-Do-It)

One video is not a campaign, so Paramount Farms had seven
different videos created, all following the same formula so the
audience's recognition and retention was enhanced and
re-enforced every time they watched a new video segment.

Pistachios Mobsters Do It Video
(http://videos.sitepronews.com/video/1399/Pistachios-Mobsters-Do-It)

This technique is not new; in particular Danone uses color
co-ordination effectively in their television commercials to
distinguish their various brands of yogurt: Activa uses a green
color palette, DanActive uses yellow, and Silhouette uses
purple. The Danone commercials don't have the edginess of the
pistachio campaign but their use of color is well thought-out
and effective even though the messaging is pretty standard.

The edgy style, consistent format, and color branding definitely
qualifies the "Get Crackin" videos as a Killer Campaign.

The Color of Money

Another campaign that makes an impression by means of its clever
use of color is the Edward Jones "Join Us" campaign. If
you're not familiar with the commercials they are available on
YouTube but unfortunately the embed option for them has been
disabled.

These commercials were shot on a white background in
black-and-white, a technique that draws special visual attention
to the yellow-and-black Edward Jones logo. The whole package is
very clever from the way the videos are shot, to the dialog, the
music, and of course the clever use of color, or lack-there-of.

The same visual style was repurposed for a companion print ad
campaign further establishing and enhancing the brand image in
the minds of the audience.

Edward Jones Companion Print Ads

The Audacity to Believe
(http://www.sitepronews.com/images2/ejprintad1.jpg)

Is on Board With the Crazy Idea
(http://www.sitepronews.com/images2/ejprintad2.jpg)

Signature Color Branding

Colorcom is a color consultancy located in Hawaii and New York.
According to their website, color branding increases recognition
by up to eighty percent; it aids memory processing and storage;
and it attracts attention, increases comprehension and mentally
engages the viewer. That's pretty powerful stuff, and you don't
have to be a mega corporation with deep pockets to implement
color effectively.

Color Affects, a London-based color consultancy, explains how
color affects perception on a physiological level through the
electrical impulses that pass from the retina to the
hypothalamus area of the brain that controls our hormones and
endocrine system. The hypothalamus controls behavior patterns,
sex and reproductive functions, metabolism and appetite among
others.

Color By Association

Color by itself is not enough to get the job done. The pistachio
campaign added the format, style, messaging and performance
elements in a consistent campaign that re-enforced the message
and the brand.

In the end, Web videos are not as much about making a sale as
they are about making contact: contact in the sense of
connecting to an audience on an intellectual and emotional
level. Web videos designed merely to flog some product or
service have built-in limitations, and an abbreviated
shelf-life, whereas video presentations designed to engage can
become eternal.
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Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design
and marketing firm that specializes in Web-video Marketing
Campaigns and Video Websites. Visit
http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and
http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com
or telephone (905) 764-1246.
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