Analysis of Pantone's brand strategy, assuming its future path through the implementation of its market and the development of a strategic and advertising design.
#PANTONIZE
Visual design // Brand Identity //
Pantone color design has become a graphic metaphor: always a simple strip of color with a white bar and a few black words in Helvetica.
_THE IDEA
Analyzing the evolution of the brand, especially in recent years when the world of social media is increasingly predominant, the integration between the real world and the digital one takes on a fundamental value.
More and more, the experience with a brand passes through its social media channels and the interactions they manage to conduct with their fanbase.
Pantone can already boast a considerable number of designers, and not only, who have drawn inspiration from the most iconic part of the brand for the realization of personal projects.
Why not use such an iconically strong symbol as a means of communication? Human creativity does not reside only in those who have transformed it into a profession, but it is present in everyone.
"Imagination is the first source of human happiness", said Leopardi, so why not give it a tool to make it flourish?
_THE STRATEGY
The applications of this strategy develop in three different but interconnected phases. The phases will have a joint start on the same day and two entry points of the user journey: installations or Instagram.
The three phases are designed to implement widespread action in both worlds in which brands can now relate, the real one and the digital one, complementing each other under the iconic sign of the Pantone chip through an integrated campaign.
The strategy that guides the entire campaign is that of Brand Awareness: Pantone is a brand that has been out of its birth niche for several years, entering the world of everyday life, but this step is not yet complete.
A medium like Instagram is the best channel to create these connections, thanks to its nature as a social media created for sharing images, as the millions of users who use it continue to demonstrate every day.
The combination of a bilateral strategy, which has real installations as its launch point but can capture the user directly in the digital world, the use of a recognizable symbol and the possibility of being able to communicate generations increasingly interested in individual expressiveness lead to choice of this social network.
1- BRAND ACTIVATION
The first phase is activated in the real world through a Brand Activation, or the process of engagement-engagement of consumers with the brand. However, Brand Activation is much more than that, it is making the consumer experience the Brand Experience, that is, the experience of the brand, a more emotional than rational involvement that leads to keeping the awareness of the brand in the memory.
This one-week Activation phase is carried out through various installations made up of oversized Pantone chips positioned within key locations in the cities. A relevant element of this first phase is the scalability of the project: the greater the number of cities globally involved, the greater the impact, the only factor determining it will be the budget.
These chips will have the purpose of being like frames in the urban environment, with the name of the campaign, #PANTONIZE, and the place where they are positioned above indicated in Helvetica: Piazza Duomo in Milan, the Sforzesco castle and so on.
Places where tourists and citizens find it natural to take a photograph to immortalize the beauty of the place and have a memory of that moment in their own Instagram feed or stories. This sharing element will bring the real installations into the digital piano, creating a bridge with the next phases.
2 - BRAND CHIPS
Near these installations will be distributed real size chips, a few centimeters in size, made of white plastic, which form the second phase of the campaign. The real chips will be available free of charge alongside the installations together with a short information sign in the language spoken in the city and the presence of a QR code that links directly to the Pantone website for a more in-depth explanation of the entire campaign.
The chip, unlike the installations, will only have shown the name of the campaign, #PANTONIZE, on them, leaving the space underneath empty in order to write what you are framing yourself, as if it were a Polaroid.
The chip, unlike the installations, will only have shown the name of the campaign, #PANTONIZE, on them, leaving the space underneath empty in order to write what you are framing yourself, as if it were a Polaroid.
The purpose of the second phase is to customize the installations, transforming them into portable versions: people will be able to take them to use them later, making the user more free to be able to capture what they want, be it a place, an object or an idea, sharing it through social media, always encouraging the use of the hashtag #PANTONIZE.
3 - INSTAGRAM JOURNEY
The last phase of the project is a totally digital phase, which will be launched through a video presentation on Instagram, which will be the user's second entry point, on Facebook and on the Pantone website.
Starting from this last media, Instagram, a custom filter will be created, which can be activated via the Pantone profile page. This filter represents the chip with the hashtag #PANTONIZE in two dimensions, in which once a photo has been taken it will be possible to insert a personal description in the space below at the user's discretion.
The spread of posts and stories may be greater thanks to the use of sponsored content, targeted to the desired audience, therefore mainly people aged 16 to 45 who interact with design-oriented pages.
4 - OOH
During the entire Activation phase, in addition to a strategic use of Instagram for the dissemination of the campaign, there will also be an ATL advertising, through the presence of billboards, especially present in the cities where the installations will be present: in this way even the public not accustomed to the use of social media can be included.
_Browse yourself
