Flying High
If you can answer the following question without reading further, please mail us at info@thefameworks.com and claim your prize… What do the following brands have in common: Ikea, Carrefour, Pepsi, Primus, Wanglaoji?
Thought about it? Still no idea?
Still wondering? Oh come on!
OK, then we’ll tell you… All of their logos use exclusively the colours of the flag of their nation of origin.
This makes them interesting, because those colours therefore encode two sets of meanings.
On the one hand, some idea of nationwide-ness, or of the essential character of that country as understood today. But on the other hand, they also act as a kind of palimpsest: scrape away at those “contemporary” surface meanings a little, and you’ll find underneath meanings to do with the original choice of those colours for the flag itself.
Thus you might say that Pepsi’s logo, in wearing the colours of the flag, articulates all those values that have themselves come to be associated with America – optimism, energy and positivity. But you might also say that there are some other harmonics there too… that Pepsi also echoes in some way the reason those three colours were chosen for the flag itself, back in the 18thCentury. There’s no official account of why the colours where chosen, just retrofitted stories; but I quite like the idea that this great country, formed out of the French revolutionary values of the enlightenment – of rationality, reason and the rejection of superstition and myth – would instinctively borrow its colours from the flag of France. Could Pepsi be a little more in tune with those enlightenment values than its rivals? That’s an interesting question in an America today not universally comfortable with those values.
China’s 王老吉（wanglaoji）a cooling herbal tea, also sports the colours of the flag, underlining its nationwide allure. (And nationwide it certainly is; this is a $7bn brand!) The flag itself, first raised in 1949, was a powerful symbol of a China newly united in a common project, solid and harmonious, in contrast to the warlord strife of the early 2oth Century. Perhaps wanglaoji’s red and gold denote
a very modern national mission to bring the overly heaty everywhere back into harmonious balance.
Ikea’s blue and gold reflect the progressive egalitarian spirit of the country itself. As for the flag, this first emerged in the 16thCentury. Legend suggests that it was chosen by Eric IX, who saw a golden cross in the blue sky as he landed in Finland en route to the first Swedish Crusade. The Danes accuse the Swedes of stealing this origin story from them and embellishing it, claiming that it was they who first took their red and white emblem to the East to recapture Christendom. (It seems the Danes have been needling the Swedes for a long time.) Whatever the legend, we can say for sure is that there’s a strong, outgoing sense of national confidence and singularity expressed in the colours of the Swedish flag. A confidence and singularity that are demonstrably part of Ikea’s DNA.
Carrefour’s adoption of the tricouleur’s colours perhaps hints at the culinary bounty of the whole nation; but if we look at the flag’s origins, there is a strong military strand and a strong connection with the traditional blue and red of Paris. The flag speaks of the strength of the centrally managed state, of imperial order, structure and organisation – highly relevant qualities for a global retailer.
Finally Primus… in many ways the most interesting of all of these. Primus is the national beer of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Many beer brands fly their national flag in one way or another – Quilmes of Argentina, Tyskie of Poland, Bintang of Indonesia to name but a few. But Primus has perhaps more right than any to do so. In one of the most dysfunctional, tragically war-torn countries on earth, four times the size of France, with practically no all-weather roads, and no state to speak of, there is scarcely a village in the country where you can’t get a Primus beer. Congo relies on imports for almost all of its processed foods. But beer is proudly local. Heineken’s Bralima, the brand’s producers, reckon that it accounts for about 2% of national GDP. This (and other national beer brands) are institutions – they sponsor Congolese musicians, and their Congo-river barges are the only vessels operating scheduled services. Where brands like Ikea or Pepsi are, in a way, appropriating national identity through their colours, Primus could claim to be creating a national identity by operating on a nationwide scale at all. It’s a different kind of ‘power of brand’ to what’s familiar in the developed economies, but all the more striking for that.
These great names remind us that in a world of marketing that loves to talk about fragmentation, challengers and niches, brands that encapsulate massive ideas can be enduringly resonant, within and beyond their own shores.
