Diriyah’s new branding is far from black and white

In April, Saudi property company Diriyah Co announced it had developed its own unique colour, “Diriyah Tan”. It did this in partnership with the Pantone Color Institute.

The colour, says Diriyah, is inspired by the mud brick architecture of the Unesco World Heritage Site at At-Turaif.

Pantone is a US company best known for its colour-matching system used by designers to plan palettes and ensure consistency in branding and design. 

The Pantone Color Institute positions itself as a “source of colour expertise”, leading initiatives such as trend forecasting and, since 2000, the Pantone Colour of the Year.

This year’s colour of the year is Mocha Mousse, “a warming, brown hue imbued with richness”, and 2024’s was Peach Fuzz, “whose all-embracing spirit enriches mind, body and soul”.

Colours have character. The way our brains react to them and how they are commonly used affects how we perceive the brands that adopt them. 

Red, for example, increases our heart rate, blood pressure and metabolism. This makes us excited and wary (think stop signs), but also hungry (think Coca-Cola or KitKat). 

Blue signals trustworthiness and reliability, hence its use by Facebook, PayPal and many banks.

So what does Diriyah Tan mean? Laurie Pressman, vice-president of the Pantone Colour Institute, says it “bridges history and progress”. She adds: “Its earthy warmth mirrors the textures of At-Turaif’s structures, reinforcing Diriyah’s role as a beacon of learning and youth empowerment.”

Diriyah Co group CEO Jerry Inzerillo, not one to miss a chance for a bit of salesmanship, says: “Diriyah Tan is a timeless tribute to At-Turaif and our new landmarks like Bujairi Terrace and Bab Samhan Hotel. It instantly connects people to Saudi Arabia’s cultural soul.”

Of course, for others, it’s just brown.

The expensive part – it can cost tens of thousands of dollars to develop a colour – is over for Diriyah, and now its marketing team must strive to ensure the shade is used across its branding, from logos to websites and ads, to become synonymous with the brand.

That’s what companies such as US jeweller Tiffany (the duck-egg blue of its boxes), fast-food company McDonald’s (yellow and red) and tractor manufacturer John Deere (green and yellow) have done with their colours, or combinations of colours.

Naming and copyrighting colour is a complex process: expensive for brands and lucrative for copyright lawyers. And developing a colour is different from having it named by Pantone, which is also different from copyrighting it.

You are pretty much free to use any colour you like in your branding, unless it starts to resemble another brand in the same industry – that’s copyright. For example, a chocolate manufacturer is not allowed to use the same purple as Cadbury, because then its bars could be mistaken for Dairy Milk.

The main reasons to register a colour with Pantone are publicity and consistency. Pantone 219 C, a shade that mixes magenta and pink, is known as “Barbie Pink” for a reason.

When the Barbie Movie was released in 2023, Mattel, which owns the Barbie brand, promoted it by erecting Barbie Pink billboards with nothing but the film’s release date on them.

The idea of owning, copyrighting or otherwise making a colour exclusive is controversial. This has been explored by artists over the years, with varying degrees of gravitas.

In 1960 French nouveau realist Yves Klein developed International Klein Blue (IKB), which he used in paintings and to splash on to models. The New York performance troupe Blue Man Group performs covered in IKB.

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In 2016 British artist Anish Kapoor struck an exclusivity deal with the company which produces Vantablack, the “blackest black” pigment of paint. This upset other artists, who didn’t like the idea of one man monopolising a shade.

In reaction, another British artist, Stuart Semple, claimed to have made an even blacker black, which was only available to artists who declared they were not Anish Kapoor.

“I’ve always thought that colour should be available to everybody,” Semple told the media. “I’ve fought for years to liberate these colours that are either corporately owned or scientists have staked a claim to, or that have been licensed to an individual person.”

Diriyah Co may find the debate around colour ownership is far from black and white. Ouch. 

Austyn Allison is an editorial consultant and journalist who has covered Middle East advertising since 2007