How do you get social issues involved in your marketing campaigns? Pantone has the perfect answer.
Pantone, the world’s color authority, has been providing a unified color standard to designers around the world for many years in order to facilitate the smooth operation of design activities.
They are also color enthusiasts, and at the end of each year, they select a representative color for the following year, using color cards and logos to define that color. Pantone’s color of the year for 2023 is a vibrant red that represents the strength and vitality required to forge a more positive future.
But Pantone has also done amazing things in the field of marketing, such as the recent launch of a compelling marketing campaign by Pantone in partnership with a charity that advocates for water conservation to mark World Water Day with the theme “The Color of Dirty Water.”
The new campaign highlights the fact that more than 771 million people worldwide lack access to clean water and are forced to drink water of the colors depicted in the campaign, using Pantone’s unique color recognition technology to analyze the color of drinking water in each region to demonstrate the alarming quality of water in water-scarce areas and to encourage people to be more environmentally conscious.
This is to demonstrate that the quality of water in water-scarce areas is concerning and to urge greater attention to water scarcity and conservation.
PAntone’s marketing campaign has representative implications worth studying.
1. First and foremost, the campaign is consistent with the brand tone.
Pantone, as a color expert, not only has a voice in the design world but also has a close relationship with people in real life. The annual announcement of representative colors has already given the company the attribute of social issue participation, and this collaboration with water conservation charities highlights the company’s advocacy of caring for social values while also utilizing its own expertise to collaborate, which is a very wise move.
2. Visual language is always the most effective way to communicate
A successful digital marketing campaign requires more than just word stacking and display; it also requires visual support. The visual poster for the water conservation website was designed by Pantone, and the color selection is of great aesthetic value. The very impactful color canvas shows Pantone’s consistent style, and the minimalist design style allows the audience to easily grasp the focus.
In the design of marketing activities, starting with the audience, as in the user interaction design for user-friendly insistence, marketing should also focus on marketing “aesthetics.” Good marketing must also be pleasing to the eye.
3. The key to marketing is to focus on storytelling.
The logic behind Pantone’s water crisis marketing campaign is to show the current situation in various water-scarce areas. The excellent point is that it does not use a large description to present a story, but rather from the point to the surface, beginning with the details of the color of the water, without attempting to retain the audience’s attention, but rather to guide the audience to discover the story behind it, much like a puzzle.
To help drive home the campaign’s message, Charity: Water is asking people to visit its website and select a color that represents the drinking water in their communities. Visitors can learn about how the non-profit has impacted someone’s life by clicking on the corresponding shade. These stories are meant to motivate visitors to take action, beginning with a donation.
4、The advantage of communicability
Pantone, as a design company, has been producing communication-oriented content for a long time. The well-designed official website and social media content that is easy to spread, along with the dual role of social and storytelling, have greatly increased the social media impact of this campaign.
