175: Thou shall remember that colors mean different things in different cultures

Commentary You have spent months perfecting a new brand of perfume that has a name inspired by royalty. Tweaking your glistening crown logo and your type solution filled with flourishes, soon gives way to the packaging design. A lush purple finds itself gripping all aspects of the brand. It feels important, and expensive, while still being romantic and sexy. The line launches to great acclaim, except in Thailand, where the distributor can’t even find many outlets willing to give it a chance. Splintering your Asian revenues, the corporate folks can’t believe they are only now learning that Thailand considers purple a color of mourning and one worn by its widows. It is an important consideration to take in when working on projects with international applications and appeal. Yellow is a color of courage in Japan, yet often linked to cowardice in the United States, and burdened with the same albatross of mourning that purple carries in Thailand, when used in Egypt. It’s so easy to use a color, but much more difficult (and valuable) to understand its significance. JF