We are winding down our “18 Days of Color” campaign, but we still have a few more colors and branding stories to share. For background on this campaign and the Social Madness contest, you can read this post.
The color of the day is …
It’s difficult to ignore pop culture and lately the literary world is somewhat obsessed with EL James’s “50 Shades of Grey.” If you put away the controversy behind the book itself, it’s still a New York Times Best Seller and has taken the cliche “shades of grey” to a new level. James’s main male character Christian Grey is aptly nicknamed in the book as “50 shades” because of his varying personalities throughout the story.
On Twitter, the book is being talked about and referred to through the hashtag #50ShadesofGrey but has also been shortened to #50Shades (probably just to allow more characters within the 140 limitation). In our sample tweet, NBC used the Twitter account for its popular soap opera “Days of our Lives” to quote a character’s comment on the show. Notice that the word “grey” doesn’t actually appear in the tweet since the network used the shortened hashtag. However, the quote “you are 50 shades of messed up!” with the addition of the #50Shades hashtag is an obvious reference to “50 Shades of Grey” and affirmation that the branding of the color and the cliche is still going strong.
Grey is an interesting color because it’s very neutral and non-commital. While it can sometimes be used to describe sadness, the grey areas between white and black shift as moods shift. A grey of 25% black isn’t quite so sad and gloomy as a 75% black.
It’s also interesting to note that the spelling of “grey” shifts too. In the U.S., it is often spelled as “gray,” but both are acceptable spellings.
Connect with us!
Please connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin so you can keep up to date on “18 Days of Color” and to help us with the Social Madness contest. You can also vote for us on the official website. (We are under the small business tab.)
Do you have a social media status update where color evokes emotion as related to business? Our campaign ends on June 18. Leave a comment below with a link and maybe we can fit you in!