Colour Observation #003

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

What's greener than green?

Brown of course.

Pangea Organics, with the help of IDEO for their brand identity and Natural Rx Brokers for their retail positioning, has turned out to be quite a success story. Pangea Organics had sales of $3 million in 2005 1 with projected sales of $2.7 million in 2007 2 (it's first year of profitability 3). Joshua Onysko, who started the company in 2002 at age of 24, operates out of a wind powered 10,000 sq foot factory overlooking the mountains in Boulder, Colorado and is the largest organic products factory in the country.

Interestingly, the company has hired a National Educator who flies city-to-city, holding sampling parties with organic cheese and wine.4 A real grassroots style meet-the-people marketing method. Even more interesting is their new zero-waste packaging that is made from t
ree-free (or 100% post consumer paper) plantable molded-fibre packaging that has live organic seeds within. That is, you can take your fully biodegradable package, bury it in the ground and have yourself a crop. This form of packaging is quickly being copied by others, "We're open-source, so we give the information to everyone that calls us and asks us."5

Regarding colour: when was the last time you saw a brand colour that was based upon brown (besides chocolate)? The only company that comes immediately to mind is UPS. In this case, I find it very interesting since the main key word for the entire natural/eco/organic industry is GREEN. In my daily life the only brown product on my shelves is a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide.

I remember from my childhood, which was not too long ago, most medical products came in glass bottles, jars, etc. Quickly it was all replaced by (toxic) plastic including such things as syringes, IV bottles, and also peroxide bottles. Peroxide bottles that I knew were made of amber glass and lightly pressurized with a small metal spring lever on top that allowed you to spray it on a wound. I think that Pangea is also using this same amber-bottle-look to make the connection with the medical-health industry, as one of the targets of the company is pharmacies along with health-food stores and the like.

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