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PANTONE

Did you know that there's a company behind the Pantone Colour System and it makes $100m+ a year off selling these tiny colour chip books? Their colour tools range from $9.75 to $8400. Insane right?  

Let me break it down to you in this week's ONE THING.

How Pantone Started? 

• Back in the early 1960s, Pantone was a printing company in Carlstadt, New Jersey where they categorize and sell colour inks
• Lawrence Herbert joined the company in 1956 as an employee and noticed how hard it was for designers to communicate colours. For example, there are warm and cool shades, lighter and darker tones etc.
• Herbert knew there had to be a better way to do things so he bought over Pantone in 1962 and launched the first Pantone Matching System guide in 1963 with 10 colours by shade and giving each of them a number
• Creating a numeric system meant that everyone in the world could communicate colours and produce colours with high accuracy

How Pantone Made It?

• Here's the thing, Pantone wasn't the first to come up with a colour-standards language but they managed to become the global standard for colours and it's all credited to Pantone's ambitious and enduring marketing scheme
• Instead of going the conventional route of running TV commercials and paying for pages in magazines, Pantone announces the "Colour of The Year" every December
• Nobody knows exactly how Pantone decides on the colour but one thing for sure is that it is based on relevant cultural events. Classic Blue was the colour of the year for 2020. Ultra Violet (2019), Greenery (2017)
• This marketing stunt worked and it solidified Pantone's identity as the global authority on colour

However, this yearly reveal of Pantone isn't exactly original. There are tons of companies out there that do this. Forbes 30 under 30 is created by Forbes, the business magazine, Fortune 500 list of companies is created by Fortune, also a business magazine, Michelin Guide is created by Michelin, the tyre company.

Are these lists legit? Questionable. But do they work? HELL YES! 

I call this Kingmaking. What you're inherently doing is just arbitrarily deciding who'll be on the list and because you decide who'll be the King, you're the actual King. Even if they think that the list is bogus at first, they will eventually buy in because nobody wants to be on the bottom of the list. Plus the people on the list will 100% share it, giving you free publicity.

Before you go...

• Check out issue #16 where we talked about the Michelin Guide ⭐
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• Have any friends or colleagues that would be interested in this issue? Forward them this email!
• You could also read past issues here

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