Shades of Influence: The Role of Colour in Brand Identity
Author/ The Right Mix
Barbie Pink, Coca-Cola Red, and now Brat Green! This particular hue, painstakingly crafted over months for Charli XCX’s latest album “Brat,” has taken the world by storm. The #bratsummer trend has exploded on TikTok with nearly a million posts, while countless individuals and businesses have embraced the lime green theme.
Design studio Special Offer Inc. is behind Brat Green, a shade meticulously selected after sifting through around 500 options, according to founder Brent David Freaney.
In its brief existence, this love-it-or-loathe-it colour was designed to provoke—and it’s succeeded, amassing a massive following among the under-30 crowd.
Will green, in branding often connoting calm and nature and used by many natural and agricultural brands, from now on be associated with a Brat girl summer, described as “a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra.”?
In a revolutionary twist, “Brat Green” has defied the traditional timeline for brand association. Where it used to take years for customers to latch onto a colour, “Brat Green” has achieved this feat in mere weeks. Once you’ve seen this vibrant hue, it’s impossible to forget, and you’ll spot it everywhere.
The official X account of the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority used a “Brat Green” graphic to alert commuters about train repairs. Golden Globe-winning actor Kyle McLachlan, at 65 years young, joined the movement, posting a music video of himself rocking out in a fluorescent green shirt. And now, “Brat Green” has even infiltrated the Presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris. Its rapid ascent is rewriting the rules of colour branding.
Where last year we were all paying top dollar to wear hot barbie pink, this year is all about Brat Green. “Colour is a language,” said Laurie Pressman, vice president of Pantone. “We gravitate towards colour, and our relationship with colour often times happens outside of our consciousness.”
Colour creates associations and expectations in the minds of your target audience, and influences their decision-making and loyalty. According to a study by the University of Loyola, colour can increase brand recognition by up to 80%. And Brat Green has hit the nail on its head. Fashion houses have already followed the trend – with slime green three-piece knit sets and alien-hued sculpted mini dresses in McQueen by Seán McGirr’s Fall 2024 show. The same colour scheme was adopted by Fendi, Jason Wu, and Brandon Maxwell’s collections and no doubt others will follow to associate their brands with the rejection of the “clean girl” aesthetic popularised on TikTok, and instead embraces more hedonistic and rebellious attitudes.
Whether the colour survives past the summer of 2024 remains to be seen, but its name has already genericised. As per Charli XCX, if you are “just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who feels like herself but maybe also has a breakdown. But kind of like parties through it, is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile. Like, does dumb things.” It’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat.