Pantone Announces #ColorOfTheYear for 2025

The Pantone color company has announced its color of the year for 2025. With all the chaos in the world including the possibility of a winter surge in covid cases, the ongoing war in Ukraine, the instability in Syria, the post-presidential election milieu, and the holiday season, this news was welcomed by those of us in the marketing field.

According to ENews, "Originally created in 1999 by the Pantone Color Institute, the Color of the Year's goal is to engage the design community and color enthusiasts around the world in a conversation around color, while shining a light on the relationship between culture and color. Pantone enlists a team of global color experts at the Pantone Color Institute to scour the world in search of new color influences - from film to art, fashion to technology, and even upcoming sporting events. To make their pick, experts at the Pantone Color Institute trawl through high-fashion runways, interior design trends, pop culture moments, and human psychology. Pantone's Color of the Year is a global phenomenon that reflects a lifestyle trend. You may see its effect on color palettes everywhere." And those of us in the marketing world anxiously await Pantone's announcement every December.

For 2025, the Pantone Color Institute has selected PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse, a warming, brown hue imbued with richness. The description of this color is as follows: "It nurtures us with its suggestion of the delectable qualities of chocolate and coffee, answering our desire for comfort."

According to Laurie Pressman, Vice President of the Pantone Color Institute, "For Pantone Color of the Year 2025, we look to a mellow brown hue whose inherent richness and sensorial and comforting warmth extends further into our desire for comfort, and the indulgence of simple pleasures that we can gift and share with others."

Is mocha the color of any well-known brand? When it comes to brown hues, here are some memorable brands: UPS, M&M's, Hershey's, Yves St. Laurent, Nespresso, A&W Root Beer, and Godiva. Are you seeing a chocolate theme?

Will your brand add mocha to its logo during 2025? And as for fashion, do you think you look good dressed in mocha?

According to ENews' reporter Megan Gray, here are some of the many Mocha Mousse colored items:

Kate Spade Outlet Madison Willow Mini Flap Crossbody:

Have you met the Madison Willow Crossbody? With a chic metal accent and soft leather exterior, it may become your next go-to bag.

OPI Nail Lacquer Nail Polish in Espresso Your Inner Self:

You may need to espresso your inner self with this chocolatey brown hue. It's a more subtle shade that will go with every outfit, and the brand promises it'll give you seven days of wear.

Puma Suede XL Sneakers:

Retro-inspired with some Mocha Mousse flair, these suede sneakers are a wardrobe staple. They can make any outfit look effortlessly cool, plus their padding and cushioning will provide a super comfy feel.

Starbucks Ground Coffee, Mocha Flavored Coffee:

Starbucks' Mocha Flavored Coffee is made without artificial flavors and can give you a chocolatey, caffeine kick.

However, according to Cristin Kennedy of Blackbird Interiors, "The announcement of a luscious brown being selected as Pantone's color of the year isn't a shock. I think that people today are after a more intimate setting in their homes. Incorporating these richer hues lends itself to that feeling. The days of homes with all white walls and fully open concepts are coming to a close." 

What do you think the color of the year will be for 2026? Here's a hint: Watch 2025 with marketing-colored glasses for clues!

And lastly, did you know that paint brands also choose colors of the year? Check out this recap from House Beautiful:

https://www.housebeautiful.com/room-decorating/colors/g63115105/color-of-the-year-2025-list/

Image Credits: Pantone, Kate Spade, OPI Nail Lacquer Nail Polish, Puma, and Starbucks.

Some Lessons in Marketing Terminology

Over the last decade, thanks to social media, I have had the privilege of meeting a variety of amazing marketing, branding, customer experience, leadership, and social media experts all over the world. One of these experts is Maureen Jann, a marketing pro based in Seattle, Washington. We recently had a discussion about marketing, Covid19's impact on marketing, and social media, and highlights follow below.

Maureen shares her experience and background in her responses, and you can meet her on LinkedIn at https://linkedin.com/in/maureenjann, on her website at https://www.superdeluxemarketing.com, and follow on Twitter @NeoLuxeMo.

QUESTION: How do you explain your title of "Co-Conspirator and Chief Marketing Strategist?"
MAUREEN JANN: So, the term “conspirator” reflects Neoluxe Marketing’s focus on becoming part of our client’s story. When they’re stressed, we step up next to them and say something like, “We’re in this together and we’ll figure it out.” You can’t expect that from your normal run-of-the-mill co-founder title. I wanted to make sure that people know that if you hire me and my team, you’re getting someone who will be side-by-side with you helping to plan your most innovative marketing shenanigans.

What I also love about the phrase “co-conspirator” is that it describes my role in our organization as well. Not only am I able to be my partner’s co-conspirator, planning strategy and growth, but I’m able to bring that same kind of “in it together” type of approach to our team. Whether that means that I stand up and act as a buffer in difficult client situations, or someone is just overwhelmed with deliverables, I can step up next to him/her/them and we can walk through the tough spot together.

As for the Chief Marketing Strategist, that’s simpler! I provide the overarching marketing and content strategy inside NeoLuxe and in our client organizations. As a perfect example, right now, I find myself as an interim VP of Marketing at a few organizations we serve. I start by providing the strategy and am then able to engage my team to help execute on the details.

QUESTION: What appeals to you most about the field of marketing, and why?
MAUREEN JANN: I started out as a graphic designer. But even early in my career, I discovered that waiting for someone to tell me what to make and why wasn’t going to cut it. As I dug into the world of marketing while I was tolerating my first job as an administrative assistant at an insurance brokerage (they were great, I was just a truly terrible admin), it became clearer and clearer to me that marketing demanded a broader, more balanced set of skills. It combined creativity and analytical thinking in a way that I didn’t expect. And as I’ve matured into my career, what’s also clear is that there is always a ton to learn.

The ability to help people taps into my empathic nature as well. Not only do I get to help marketers achieve their goals, but I get to help connect them with their customers as well. I can walk a mile in their shoes and distill their wants, needs, desires, and influences into personas that can drive an entire organization’s understanding of their customer. Using my natural ability to connect and build trust with people to create that level of impact feels like the holy grail of occupations. I truly love what I do.  

QUESTION: Based on your professional experiences since March of 2020, how has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the world of marketing?
MAUREEN JANN: I’ve found that my personal experience during the pandemic is indicative of what I’m seeing in the market. By May of 2020, I had lost every client I had. I was starting from zero. But true to my phoenix form, I merged with another agency to form NeoLuxe Marketing. Of course, starting a new business in a pandemic is tricky and I knew if I didn’t hustle hard, I would fall flat on my face. So, I took 500 meetings in 5 months to build up the pipeline and get a real sense for what my prospects and the marketing industry at large were dealing with. This was in combination with homeschooling my kiddo and managing complex social structures with our education pod. The good news is that it worked. We went from zero clients to signing 6-figure clients in nine months thanks to the work of myself and my partner, Chris Craft. The bad news is that this didn’t happen without many tears and much gnashing of teeth (and a whole lotta time on Zoom). It just happened to close with a happy ending.

Marketing as a whole, much like my story, comes out the other side of this pandemic with a newfound desire to survive. That means we are navigating new internal demands, shifting persona populations dealing with more stress and anxiety, and in many cases, smaller teams. We are in a world where we need to know our customers better than ever to ensure that we don’t step in a pile of “NOPE” when we communicate with them.

There is added complication with the growing tech stacks as well. We were required to double down on digital transformation (although we were pretty digital to start with) because we are doing more with less in a way that we have never needed to in years prior. Automation is more important than ever. Efficiency and planning are more important than ever before. But doing it with a loose grip is critical as well because things could change again in the flutter of a butterfly’s wing.

TWEET THIS: We are in a world where we need to know our customers better than ever to ensure that we don’t step in a pile of “NOPE” when we communicate with them. ~@NeoLuxeMo #CX #marketingtip #brandexperience

QUESTION: What's your favorite social platform, and why?
MAUREEN JANN: I love Twitter. It’s fun, immediate, active, and allows for true interaction. I do a ton of TweetChats and highly recommend anyone in the marketing and business worlds to look up some TweetChats to participate in. They offer the opportunity to interact with the topic’s community in a way that’s moderated, fun, and fast.

Here are my three fave TweetChats:
(1) #CMWorld, 9am PT on Tuesdays - A wonderful community that has quite literally helped propel my career.
(2) #ContentChat, 12p PT on Mondays - Smart, sharp, and fresh questions on important topics. It's hosted by the amazing Erika Heald, and she brings together a unique community of outstanding marketers.
(3) #SEMRushChat, 8am PT on Wednesdays - A more technical crowd. I never fail to learn something new from a group of marketing experts that I don't often get to connect with.

QUESTION: How do you convince/make a case to a client to create a brand style guide when none previously existed for the business?
MAUREEN JANN: I always show them the money. Much like a creative brief, brand style guides offer an agreed-upon approach that saves endless rounds of editing, tweaking, and updating to reflect current brand approaches and strategies. The employees, contractors, and vendors know what’s anticipated of them, and they’re far more likely to get it right the first time if you set the expectations with a brand style guide.

QUESTION: What's your favorite marketing buzzword, and why? What's your most disliked marketing buzzword, and why?
MAUREEN JANN: Honestly, I don’t think or speak in buzzwords so this question is a little tough for me. Of course, as I type that, the words “machine learning/artificial intelligence” pop up for me as some of my least favorite terms. Not only are they ambiguous, but they are often grouped together when they are clearly two different concepts. Sometimes they can work together, but most frequently, organizations are creating dynamic algorithms and calling it AI. I get really tired of folks leveraging those phrases incorrectly.

I’m also hesitant to say that I have a favorite marketing buzzword. I like the word shenanigans (as seen in my response to the first question) and I love slipping that into every-day conversations. But the marketing specific buzzword that I am really enjoying and learning about is OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). The idea that you start with the objective, then you work your way back towards key results feels intuitively like a much more effective approach to goals and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Goals often feel arbitrary and KPIs can feel like a goal’s equally arbitrary cousin. Starting with what you want to achieve through an object process seems far more useful.

My gratitude and appreciation to Maureen for appearing on my Blog and for sharing her marketing insights.

 

Additional reading about OKRs:

OKRs Vs. KPIs: Breaking Down The Difference:
https://www.clearpointstrategy.com/okrs-vs-kpis/

A brief history of OKR:
https://www.perdoo.com/okr-guide/

Image Credit: Daniel Herron and Unsplash app.

What’s Social Media Got to Do with Logo Design?

Years ago, when social media was new, brands were forced to alter their logos to fit into squares. This was because brands needed recognizable profile images for Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and more. However, as social platforms continue to evolve, the idea of altering a logo for events or themed occasions has taken center stage.

Recently, the Los Angeles Dodgers major league baseball team traveled to Mexico for the 2018 Mexico Series. From a marketing perspective, the most important news from this three-game series was that the Dodgers, who normally feature either a solid blue logo, or blue and white logo, or blue, white, and red logo SUDDENLY featured a green, white, and red logo – colors that comprise the Mexican flag. The altered logo was prominently featured on the Dodgers’ key social channels including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Once the series ended, the Dodgers’ red, white, and blue logo re-appeared throughout social media.

Has your brand ever done something similar? Have you altered your logo to promote an event or a cause? Have you added a ribbon, changed a key color, added wording, or something else that doesn’t adhere to your brand style guide?

If yes, how have your customers, fans, and prospects reacted? How has the media reacted? Have they supported the change? Have they responded? Have they even noticed? Or was the change so miniscule that no one noticed?

Perhaps, the take-away is that you should issue a press release before the altered logo is launched to explain the reason or reasons for the change and the time frame for the altered logo. Even if a huge following doesn’t catch (no pun intended) the altered logo, it will live on in your online press room.


Image Credit: Los Angeles Dodgers via Twitter.

Five Tips to Create Your Brand Style Guide

What’s one of the most important documents that your company has? While you might think it’s the list of passwords to gain access to your customer database, and that’s certainly important, a brand style guide is critical. In today’s competitive and social economy, a consistent and positive brand experience leads to future business and new customers. Therefore, a brand style guide is essential for the future success of your business.

This post provides five tips to create a brand style guide. A note, this document is a living, breathing document, so it will evolve over time – just as your business evolves. But if you don’t have one, don’t delay, create a brand style guide immediately.

[1] Showcase Your Brand Voice

Is your brand playful or serious? Do you have industry-specific jargon that’s easy to understand, or do you need to provide definitions? It may be easier to explain your brand’s voice by sharing examples with sample sentences. Another way to explain your brand’s voice may be by way of comparisons. Here’s an example from MailChimp: “We’re fun but not silly, expert but not bossy, confident but not cocky.”

[2] Showcase Your Brand Visuals

Is your brand associated with a specific color or colors? Think UPS and brown. Is your brand associated with a specific font? Think Coca-Cola’s swirl. If yes, know the Pantone or PMS colors as well as the CMYK and RGB versions. Also include “Don’t Use” examples with your logo and tagline.

[3] Showcase Consistency

Your brand is not just one logo, one tagline, and one or more colors. Think of how the Apple brand has evolved from the iPod to the iPhone to the iPad. When your main brand evolves and co-brands are created, consistency with the main brand provides credibility. Consumers, users, and stakeholders have developed a bond with your brand, and as a result, you want them to also develop a bond with your other brands. The best way to make this happen is to provide brand consistency. Apple did this by including the “i” in its brand naming structure.

[4] Include Your Legal Team

Ask your legal team to review the style guide. This will accomplish two important goals. First, the legal team will be involved in the process so that if any brand or trademark infringements happen, the legal team will be aware of the document you’ve created. And second, the legal team can share its trademark law expertise and possibly add something to the style guide that was missed by the marketing, design, PR, and/or personnel teams.

[5] Share Your Guide Company-Wide

Once the brand style guide has been completed, don’t toss it into a drawer in the personnel department leader’s office and forget about it. Include it as part of your onboarding process and hold quarterly brand training sessions. Feature it as a PDF on your website in the online press room and feature highlights in a blog post or blog posts on your company’s blog. Apply the guidelines to all other company marketing applications including letterhead and envelopes, business cards, email signatures, PowerPoint presentation templates, meeting agendas, flyers, and more. Use the logo or an approved tweaked version on all social platforms. Make sure that your employees know that they are encouraged to associate themselves with your company/brand when they post in social media but that they must clearly note their online posts as their own (for example, in their Twitter profiles).
 
And lastly, it is a good idea to provide an introduction to your brand style guide. Here is a sample introduction:

"These guidelines are provided to help carry our brand message to the community. Along with the brandmark, typography, color palette and other visual elements, directions are included to help manage the visual communication materials. This guide should be used as a reference when working with outside vendors and also with internal departments to ensure that everyone is using the (include your company name here) logo and other brand tools in a consistent manner."

What else have you included in your brand style guide? Please chime in and share.