Letters to the Editor
[Re: Loose Cannon: Black and White and Re(a)d All Over, Direct Newsline, May 9, 2005]: Loved your color column — as I do most of what you write.
I’m married to a man who only had an eight-crayon box when he was a child, and knows nothing of which you speak. For him, red covers everything from the faintest hint of “Ballerina Pink,” to “Fluorescent Hot Pink” to “Fire Engine Red,” to “Deep, Plum Burgundy.” Brown would be “Light Powder Beige,” to “Mocha Cream,” to “Darkest Mahogany.” You’ve already covered the blue hues, but you get the idea.
So when you say car color matters to men, in my reality, I’d think whoever said that probably came from where Buzz Aldrin found those rocks (which, incidentally, according to a not-so-popular physics theory — but once confirmed by Buzz — actually changed color as they entered the earth’s atmosphere).
If, as marketers, we ever reach the point of defining segments based on color preferences, I suspect we might all throw in the towel. But let’s be sure to dye it our favorite color first. Keep up the great work.
Jill Eenigenburg
Eenigenburg & Company
Bellevue, WA
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Thanks for the colorful message — I got a good hearty LOL! If the Pantone people really wanted to try for some ethnic preferences, I’d suggest Matza Crumbs as my favorite neutral. (I’m still picking ’em out of the floor tiles…).
Michelle R. Blechman
Senior Manager, Customer Marketing Research
Market Research & Business Intelligence
Abbott Laboratories — Pharmaceutical Products Division
Abbott Park, IL
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Haven’t seen the report, and am glad you featured it. My opinion is that Pantone should have stuck to numbering their colors and left color naming to pigment manufacturers and artists. Color matching is not a touchy feely science.
J.D. Kinney
CEO
Dev.Kinney/MediaGraphics, Inc.
Memphis, TN
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Thank you, Loose Cannon, for lobbing a Monday morning treat my way. Your comments on the consumer-color-preference-survey results were spot-on.
Terrific writing — color me Envy Green!
Pete Rice
President
Children’s Group 800-Flowers.com
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Great article on color.
Taupe or Natural is one of the best-selling colors in a lot of categories. People may not love it, but they buy it because it safe.
Bert Shlensky
New Rochelle, New York
