Have you ever noticed how big companies or even restaurants brand themselves? There’s no mistaking who the ads are from. They use the same colors in their packaging, their signs, and all their advertisement.

For this example we are going to look at Bojangles and Kentucky Fried Chicken. They both are fast food restaurants. They both serve chicken, but their menus are different.

Their colors are different. Bojangles colors are red and yellow. KFC’s colors are red and white. You immediately recognize their brand, their restaurants, and their packaging.

I had the funniest thing happen to me lately. My husband and I were coming back from North Carolina, where he is currently working. He makes this trip every week, so he has several places along the way that he always stops for what we call pit stops. The stops may be to get something to eat, go to the restroom, get gas, or grab a cup of coffee.

About an hour down the road we stopped to pick up some dinner at Bojangles. We were going to be running late getting home so we got our food to go and ate it in the car as we were traveling.

On our next stop, which was only a short way down the road, we got gas. While we were getting gas my husband threw his empty box from Bojangles in the trash. I was still eating my dinner so I held on to my box until the next stop.

The next stop was at Kentucky Fried Chicken. We stopped there to use their facilities, since we had already eaten dinner. My husband and granddaughter headed across the parking lot and were standing inside the door of KFC waiting on me. Here I come across the parking lot of KFC with my Bojangles box in hand, thinking that I was going to trash it before I went inside.

Much to my surprise there was no trash can in the parking lot. As I approached the door of KFC my husband was standing there with his eyes wide open, looking at me as if to say, “What are you going to do now, girl?”

We both chuckled as I entered KFC with my Bojangles box in hand trying to hide it as I headed toward the ladies room. I passed him as he was about to go into the men’s room and he said, “Here, hand that to me” and he stashed the Bojangles box in the trashcan at the door of KFC men’s restroom.

On the way home we laughed about the experience and discussed why KFC didn’t have trash cans on the outside of their building. We decided that it was probably to keep down litter, but they sure would come in handy when you needed to trash a Bojangles box before entering KFC.

So when you think of branding your business, books or products. Remember my little story about Bojangles and KFC. Make your products, websites, signs, etc. distinctive so that anytime someone sees them, they will know who they belong to.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my story about branding.

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PS. I found a great article about the psychology of color. It gives suggestions about colors you should use on your website. Some of the things to consider are: who is your target audience, what kind of website, blog or business do you have. I found this article on Entrepreneur.com. Check it out at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232741

To your success,

Deborah