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Orange
Orange has been hailed in the press as “the brand of the nineties” and “a
textbook success story” that set a new standard for branding innovation.
Simple, clear, and bright, Orange cut through the noise and complexity surrounding the U.K. mobile-
phone market. Its powerful brand identity, name, and visual style created an unusually high degree
of consumer awareness. Within ten weeks of launch, it enjoyed 45 percent spontaneous recognition.
By April 1996, just two years later, Orange scored 70 percent recognition, 20 percent higher than its
heavyweight competitors Vodafone and Cellnet.
Wolff Olins, a leading brand consultancy, worked closely with parent company Hutchison to create
the Orange brand. The philosophy behind Orange was radically different from anything else on the
market, so it was a risk for the client. Rob Furness, head of brand marketing at Orange, says, “We
understood that marketing was going to be the biggest part of it, and we would have to make a
strong visual and marketing impact to take the lead.”
Daren Cook, Wolff Olins’ senior designer for the project, explains the radicalism. “The United
Kingdom didn’t need another mobile-phone network. We all felt that ‘If you’re the last fish in the
pond, don’t jump in. Go make a new pond.’”
ORANGE AND THE ORANGE LOGO DEVICE ARE TRADEMARKS OF ORANGE PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES LIMITED AND ARE USED WITH SPECIAL PERMISSION.
Orange product packaging uses all
of the brand’s main elements: the
one-word name, the large square,
and an orange, black, and white
color scheme. Consistency is one of
the brand’s strengths.
The Orange brand is unique in name,
color, and spirit. The obvious design
direction would have been to put the
brand name in an orange circle, resem-
bling the fruit. But reversing the name
from an orange square was a break-
through: The mark does not look like an
orange. It is Orange.
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Weeks before the Orange launch, these
mysterious messages appeared through-
out the United Kingdom, in ads, on TV,
and on billboards, produced by the ad
agency WCRS. They speak of the brand’s
benefits, not of the product. Phones are
never shown in Orange advertising.
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Everyone involved in the process brought this attitude to bear on the project. Hutchison and Wolff
Olins together chose a completely different vision: a brand full of personality, spirit, and attitude, one
that didn’t even need to show phones in its ads. The aim was to change the rules for marketing
mobile phones. Instead of talking about products, Orange talks about its overall vision of a wire-free
future.
During the naming process, “Orange” became a “catalyst name” that could be used to encourage
people to think differently. But fruit was not mentioned in naming discussions. The team’s goal was
to talk about the company, not fruit.
At the start of the design process, an obvious direction would have been to put the name in an
orange circle. But that would have introduced the unwanted concept of fruit. So the team went to the
opposite extreme and reversed the name out of an orange square. When people see the mark, they
don’t say, “That looks like an orange.” Instead, they say, “That is orange.”
The visually compelling combination of the simple name, shape, and color has strong, positive
connotations. Orange feels warm. Also, consumers didn’t need to read the word; it was enough that
they could see the color. These basic elements made the platform on which the brand identity would
be built a consistently visionary one. They communicate the specific values—straightforward,
dynamic, refreshing, friendly, and honest—that inform every Orange design.
Helvetica is another major component of all of Orange communications, as is the use of words—
almost as art elements—in its advertising. A single-word teaser billboard campaign, produced by
the ad agency WCRS, went nationwide at the time of the brand launch. They were tersely inspiring—
”Talk, ““Listen,” “Laugh,” and “Cry”—highlighting the overall benefit of its phone product to make
meaningful connections with other people.
The television campaign launched two weeks later picked up on the billboards’ fun and mystery, this
time revealing all. To this day, Orange communications—advertising, packaging, stationery, and
brochures—retain the original simplicity.
When the team came up with, “The future’s bright, the future’s Orange,” the phrase became a hall-
mark of the brand. More recently, WCRS has used the line, “Do you speak Orange?” It at once intro-
duces Orange as a brand and as a potential lifestyle, hinting at the unspoken benefits of belonging.
It complements well the original “The future’s bright, the future’s Orange” phrase.
When it was released, Orange had an immediate initial appeal to the thirty-something market, but
its spirit soon spread into the wider population. The brand was positioned to appeal both emotion-
ally and rationally. Its visual style made it a comfortable part of everyday life, but Orange also made
its business practices much friendlier. Billing was done by the second, not rounded up to the next
minute, to keep bills fair. Unlike other mobile-phone companies, Orange’s prepaid phone minutes
don’t have an expiration date. Plus, the company works hard to keep its literature approachable and
easy to understand, a definite anomaly in a business fraught with confusing offers and contracts.
The easygoing nature of
Orange’s identity is evident in
this promotional postcard.
The same color scheme and mood
are carried through in Orange’s
retail environments.
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Selling Orange in other countries and regions, such as Belgium, Switzerland, India, and Australia,
naturally presented challenges. Orange says different things to different people in different places.
What is dynamic there? What is refreshing? What is friendly? Preaching the word of Orange is dif-
ferent everywhere. Wherever it is, however, the essence of the brand is the same.
The brand’s personality has become so distinct that Wolff Olins and Orange U.K. produced “The
Orange Anthology,” an in-house coffee-table book for employees and cooperating networks abroad.
It is a collection of thoughts and images to capture the more intangible aspects of the brand, put
together as if Orange were a human being. It considers its likes and dislikes, forming a personality.
Orange knows that there are many factors that make it win, but one of the major elements is the
extremely distinctive way it communicates. Its product is not unique, but its spirit certainly is. It’s a
secret ingredient, their ace that other people don’t have.
Orange recently produced a book
illustrating the brand’s personality
and philosophy through a collection
of scrapbook material. Senior design-
er Daren Cook notes that “Orange
has become very much like a person
and can be introduced as such.”
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Whimsical type play further enlivens the brand.
“Do you speak Orange?” A major
tagline used in Orange promotions
intimates that the brand is more of
a lifestyle than some sort of arbi-
trary corporate creation.
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