Jazz Up Your 2023 Marketing Campaigns with Pantone Color of the Year, Viva Magenta
Why Viva Magenta | Color Psychology of Viva Magenta | Examples of How to Add Viva Magenta to Your Existing Color Palette | Finding Inspiration
Estimated Read Time 3 Minutes
As the excitement of the holiday season winds down and the monotony of winter sets in, how are you going to keep excitement in your early 2023 marketing?
Enter the 2023 Pantone Color of the Year, Viva Magenta. If you are looking to add a burst of vibrant, exciting emotion to your campaigns and posts, Pantone has delivered with this year’s color. After last year’s calming, lavender hue – Very Peri, this year’s color is dramatic, full of energy and passion. It feels perfect for a world that is looking to capture some of the energy of pre-pandemic times, while also charting a new way forward with new business practices, a different economic reality, and seemingly limitless boundaries for creativity and entrepreneurialism.
What I particularly love about this year’s color is that it stands on the border of pink and red, giving vibes of both colors, but creatively defying classification. It’s a color with a big personality that you can inject into your 2023 marketing and social media campaigns in small doses, for maximum effect. Let’s explore the background of this color to learn what makes it different and then see how we can use it to add a splash of drama and creativity throughout 2023.
Why Viva Magenta
Each year, the Pantone Color Institute chooses a color which they think best represents the year. For 2023, Viva Magenta was chosen because it is, “brave and fearless, and a pulsating color whose exuberance promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration, writing a new narrative”.
Although it may seem like such a bright, bold color is removed from the more natural or neutral shades that have often dominated color schemes the past few years, this shade of the red color family is also inspired by nature. Existing in nature, as a flower color, it also owes its origin as a dye to the color of the cochineal beetle. An article on the Pantone website – What is Viva Magenta? – describes these natural origins saying, “This insect produces carmine dye, one of the most precious, strongest, and brightest of the natural dye family.”
Color Psychology of Viva Magenta
Viva Magenta lives in the red color family. But it’s far from simply being a shade of red. It’s a complex color to define, hovering between both warm and cold color families. Warm colors include red, orange, and yellow, and bring a sense of warmth, vigor, and excitement. Cold colors, including blues and greens, trigger feelings of calm, tranquility, and stability. Looking at the color wheel, the color red is bordered on one side with orange and on the other with purple (or on a more basic color wheel, blue). As any woman who has tried to purchase red lipstick will attest, red colors run the color spectrum from fiery orangey reds, to blue toned maroons. Viva Magenta pulls from both sides to create a very exciting color with aspects of both ends of the spectrum.
In practical terms what does this actually mean for using Viva Magenta? If you have ever worked with me on a creative project, you will know I am a huge fan of deciphering the psychology of colors to create brand and campaign look and feel. The colors that surround us in everyday life, contribute to our daily mood and feelings. So, the colors that we use for our brands need to tell our potential clients and customers how our business will make them feel.
Drawing on its red origins, Viva Magenta gives off a vibe of excitement, drama, passion, and vibrancy. It’s tempered with blue tones, making it feel more approachable and creative. The allusion to the pink family, gives it a slightly feminine vibe, but the level of intensity pulls it back from feeling immature or innocent. It is more the color of the femme fatale than the baby-faced cherub. Colors which stand on the border between two families, and that are therefore hard to completely place in either – think Magenta (is it red or pink?) or Teal (is it blue or green?) - inspire creativity and a feeling of limitlessness. Where do the borders of creativity lie if even the color is not quite able to be clearly labeled? Pantone cleverly describes this alternate world of magenta as the #magentaverse.
How to Add Viva Magenta to Your Existing Color Palette
Now that we have explored the background and significance of the color of 2023, let’s look at some ideas to creatively include it in your marketing. This is a color where a little bit goes a long way.
1. Don’t confuse your clients
As with adding any color to your brand marketing, it’s important that the new color doesn’t overshadow the look and feel that your customers are expecting. There are exceptions to this rule. For example, if you are doing a special campaign to raise awareness for breast cancer and choose to change your colors to a pink theme for a month. For a campaign that changes your brand feel temporarily to work, the campaign has to be specifically stated with a definitive beginning, ending, and goal, so your viewers aren’t confused. A confused potential client usually results in a lost client who moves on to another similar business that isn’t confusing.
2. Ideas for Light Palettes
Adding accents in Viva Magenta to a pastel palette brings a feeling of energy, strength, or vibrancy. If your palette is centered around naturals, earthtones, or pale pink, viva magenta will fit in easily as a stronger pop of color. For businesses in the caregiving space, take care to add just a pop of color so that the strong character of this shade of magenta doesn’t confuse the message of your established branding.
3. Ideas for Bold Palettes
Adding accents in Viva Magenta to a black or dark palette produces a high drama, modern feel. With a bold palette, this color can slot in as another strong color. In most cases, a strong palette can handle more of another strong color without confusing the color message of a brand. Black, navy, and green will play especially well with this color.
4. What to Avoid
Not all colors will work well with Viva Magenta. Some colors in the red family will clash if the values of the colors are at odds. For example, if your brand palette is centered around bright red take care that the shade of red doesn’t conflict. In this case, using it around your other brand colors and not the red would work better. Some shades of pink and orange will also not combine harmoniously.
Finding Inspiration
The color of the year is going to be popping up all around throughout 2023. I always find great inspiration from seeing what is going on in other sectors. Viva Magenta will not only be showing up in graphic design. Fashion, interior design, and textile design are also great places to start looking for inspiration. In the end, colors are all around us. Have fun with the process and if you feel inspired to write your next Instagram caption in Viva Magenta, go for it and use your eyes as a guide to what looks best.
Need help to jazz up your 2023 campaigns with Viva Magenta? Click here to schedule a free 30-minute consultation to get some ideas for directions you can take!
