Your brand's colour palette isn't a dress code

Colour ≠ Category

Industry colours aren’t strategy, they’re stereotypes. They were meaningful once, but now they simply signal that you haven't defined what actually makes you different.

If your brand blends into its category palette, then your colour isn’t communicating. It’s camouflaging and I think it could be losing you valuable customers and revenue.

Colour is behaviour

A strong brand palette isn’t chosen because “that’s what our industry wears.”
It’s chosen because it expresses:

• How you want people to feel,

• How you show up, and

• What space you want to own in the audience’s mind.

Distinctive > Appropriate

The job of brand strategy is to place you where others aren’t.
So if every competitor turns up in the same colour story, that’s free real estate for you to take.

A disruptive sustainability brand in electric pink? Suddenly unforgettable.
A wellness brand in acid brights? Finally awake.
A tech brand in warm neutrals? Human, not robotic.

There are times when your industry's chosen colour be the right choice, but to drive distinction, let's choose an unexpected hue of it, or pair it with a complementary colour that helps it stand out whilst also fitting in.

My tip: put personality before palette

Your brand isn’t an industry. It’s a point of view. A tone. A set of behaviours.
Colour should amplify that, not apologise for it.

In the world of business, branding "safely" can feel comfortable to shareholders and investors, but I think it's actually the opposite reality. If colours express your truth, not an industry template, then you build distinction, memorablity and brand equity, all of which help customers to remember who you are.