Skip colour theory, give us pageantry capitalism

Being a consumer now means being exposed to more brands than our parents ever dreamed existed. It means being exposed to thousands of concepts, 'ethos', taglines and campaigns that focus on bringing something ‘to life’. For many brands recently, that means relying on a specific colour in their portfolio to communicate for them.

Recently, Klein blue and olive green have been surging in prominence among visual trends, Vogue reports. This is one of those countless times where I read a statistic and said; That’s it – just trending? I've been seeing it e.v.er.y.w.h.e.r.e. I've seen it so much my unconscious is painted with these colours. I've been dreaming of Klein blue and shades of green that make my stomach instinctively churn.

Colour theory is a new and cheap way to communicate creativity and build innovative brand associations for younger brands, service-based businesses, or creative projects. "What's a colour that screams 'never been done before,' 'edgy,' 'intelligent,' 'innovative'? That screams, 'I'm the Yves Klein of capitalism'? I know…"

An interesting colour portfolio, Klein blue or a new, particularly unsettling shade of green, for example, communicates an artist’s consciousness of the inherent appreciation of modernity needed for any new and relevant project. It often permits them to avoid supporting it with an offering that's meticulously thought out and full of rich, individual value, instead replacing it with the constant symbolism of the colour itself. Except it can be a death sentence for any building's reputation. Tying your brand to such a symbol of modern grandeur and following it up with half-thought-out content is a quickfire way to underwhelm your audience into brand irrelevance.

Its prevalence among half-decent projects is indicative of a broader issue among business models today – a regular attempt to grab heritage association from consumers without the history to warrant it. Done well, and these are some of the greatest colours to use in branding and imagery. But they are not in and of themselves a sign of thoughtful investment; instead, they can often be used as a temporary grab for association marketing.

Brands also attempt to engage in association marketing through the pop-up concept of ‘experiences’. It allows the brand to shortcut the long-term loyalty heritage brands have built through their stories over time by creating an immediate conceptual world the consumer can buy into. And it works.

These days, concepts are what new brands feel they need to succeed. Like, here's our farm stand in mid SoHo, an ice cream parlour on the Seine - a conceptual sort of fever dream. Reminiscent of an early 2000s children's desktop computer game, where you could claim points for building child-like stores in the middle of a world-class city.

Conceptual stores also nurture an immersive shopping experience that makes each product feel like an investment into a conceptual lifestyle, purchased both in the pop-up and the months surrounding it online and creating the feeling that you, as the consumer, have earned intellectual, social and/or cultural capital just by purchasing this product in person in this conceptual, dreamlike store. Like merch but greater – living in a brand experience to be rewarded with cultural status. By stepping in, you also feel like you’ve participated in the execution. You've completed the final step in this project – you’ve stepped into the concept to make it a real social experience. You, in turn, have earned your intangible capital, and all you had to do was show up.

Contrary to the tone of this piece so far, I actually enjoy the real-life experiences for brands which I already love– it makes consuming exciting and adds indulgence – feeling as though the utmost care will be taken of you while you’re here because this brand wants this short-lived experience to be worth a lifetime's rent. The tangible care we have missed as digital customers.

But the level at which brands that can afford it are doing it feels like they’re experience is sort of erected out of a branded figurine that’s fallen out of an in-house vending machine. Which one would we like ready and packaged today? Some luxury brands do it so often you wonder if their CEO even has a clear idea of exactly how many they’re operating in any given year. For everyone outside the cult-luxury consumer, it feels inauthentic, as it probably is.

The craving of consumers for comfort and traditionality, nostalgic for a consumer environment filled with thoughtful intimacy. Reminiscent of Christmas, when Gen-Z were spoilt rotten in their dual-income parents’ homes during the early 2000s (for many households, a generational first), the parents who were tastemakers of their own lives, fuelled by new-millennium excitement. While millennials are searching for their own refined adult mark on the gift of individual taste that will last decades, and the boomers and Gen Xers are finally coming around to trusting this whole online purchasing thing. Our social conditions are pushing us to value taste and considerate branding more. And we’re leaping right into the move.

This value-driven consumption is representative of a collective longing for red-bowed, greeting-card, big-department-store shopping bags and window-display consumerism. We ushered in the technification of the shopping experience, but we didn’t actively choose to say goodbye to the showboat tradition of shopping. The deals, the low prices thanks to globalised supply chains and digital communication, were too exciting for a post-GFC world to ignore. We wanted to feel that sense of luxurious copious newness without the paycheck to back it up. But now, with digital media legitimised and creatives trained for decades embracing the digital landscape, the idea of limiting our media consumption to just that which celebrates low-cost products feels wasteful. Now, the art critic, the magazine editor, the politician, the gallerist, the curator, are all bringing that expertise to the same rigorous specificity of taste and celebration of the purchasing experience that we remember discovering for the first time in magazines laid across our parent's investment furniture, breathing life into the living rooms our parents always dreamt of crafting for the perfect dinner party.

The pageantry of purchasing the product, the personal salesperson, the gift-wrapping just for one, and pushing open the double doors with your large, branded bag perfectly lined with perfectly texturally accompanied wrapping paper, which really embodied “THIS IS WHAT I WORKED ALL WEEK FOR!” This intimacy in consuming, in whatever personal variation it takes, is what we miss.

We want the ceremonious experience of capitalism that we can’t stay away from. We want the excitement and identity-enriching experience of being associated with a company or brand we admire. Above all, we want aspirational products – more so in periods of uncertainty than any other because they signal hope. By association, the consumer is beguiled with the idea of a hopeful future.

With costs rising and layoffs a cool breath of fear on everyone’s necks, humanness and meticulous craftsmanship are the most coveted stories a brand could tell. And your reliance on a wild branding colour isn’t cutting it.