UKNM: The colour red (was a lot of guff about Coke)

[Ray Taylor]

I hope the Coke saga is going to end soon. It's getting worse than the

sweaty trainers in a big bedroom series currently running on C4. But at

least that's finishing now, unlike the moany old suburbanites on a wet rock

series which is just steaming into spring 2000 and looks set to reach

Christmas 2000 by Summer 2002. By which time they will have built a

supermarket and a road bridge over from the mainland to supply it, just in

case the children fancy a fresh bottle of scotch to keep them warm at night.


But just to put the record straight, the colour Red was not invented by

Coke. I distinctly remember seeing it some years before Coke was launched.

The colour red has been used for millennia to market all sorts of brands,

representing, as it does, danger, excitement and blood. Brand extension can

take it into the realms of sacrifice and (in the latter-day Christian

context) Christmas, itself a brand extension of the various pagan

celebrations of the winter solstice.


So red is a Christmassy colour and was so long before the Coca Cola company

made use of it. Holly berries have been red for a lot longer than fizzy

drinks with added stimulants have. Most Santa traditions derive from the

Soumi peoples in the territory now known as Lapland, but the takeup

throughout Europe was relatively swift since most European traditions

include a "Green Man" myth of a mysterious, magical (but some times

benevolent) forrest-dweller.


If Coke have successfully expropriated history too (and fooled lots of

marketing people), then I guess this is an indication of the power of

commercial brands today. But before being convinced by a history book (or

museum, etc), ask yourself who wrote it and why?


And if you want to use the colour red in an ad (as we often do) don't worry.

You don't have to ask Coca Cola's permission first.


Ray Taylor



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