In 1968, Cliff Cooper opened his music shop in London. He painted it bright orange, inside and out, giving it a luminous presence you couldn’t miss from blocks away.

The neighbouring shop owners complained. The council ordered him to change it back to the original dark brown. Cooper refused. Letters flew back and forth. The council eventually gave up.

That orange shop became Orange Amps. Used by rock stars everywhere. Orange made it impossible for them to ignore when every competitor chose beige.

Your marketing faces Cooper’s choice every day. Blend with the dark brown storefronts of “excited to announce” posts and stock photos of people pointing at screens. Or paint it orange and deal with the complaints.

The beige epidemic

Walk through any business district and count the forgettable shopfronts. Scroll through LinkedIn and tally the interchangeable thought leadership posts. The pattern is unmistakable: safety in numbers, comfort in conformity.

Most marketing departments operate like insurance companies—minimising risk rather than maximising impact. The logic seems sound: blend in, avoid complaints, get budget approved. But this strategy contains a fatal flaw: invisible marketing is worthless marketing.

Consider the last five marketing emails you remember. They were not opened or deleted, but they were actually remembered. They probably broke some convention, used humour, made a bold claim, or took a definitive stance on something others hedge about.

(Most companies spend more time debating the minor details of their marketing and comms than their actual products or customers. Yikes!)

These memorable pieces didn’t succeed despite being different. They succeeded because they were different. In a world where attention is the scarcest resource, distinctiveness is the currency that matters.

What orange actually means

Going orange isn’t about being outrageous for attention. It’s about being authentically, unmistakably yourself when everyone else sounds like a committee wrote for them (sometimes this is 100% true).

Orange means having a clear point of view and consistently expressing it. It means choosing precision over politeness, clarity over consensus. When everyone else says “solutions that leverage synergistic capabilities,” Orange says “software that does that thing you need it to do really well.”

The best orange strategies seem obvious in hindsight. Dollar Shave Club didn’t change razor technology—they changed razor marketing by acknowledging that shaving is mundane and expensive. Patagonia doesn’t just sell outdoor gear—it actively discourages unnecessary purchases. Both approaches seemed risky until they worked.

Orange requires understanding your audience well enough to speak their actual language, not the sanitised version approved by legal. It means acknowledging uncomfortable truths your competitors pretend don’t exist.

Finding your orange

Your orange already exists. It’s buried under layers of corporate speak and committee compromises, but it’s there. Start by identifying what you believe others in your industry avoid saying.

Maybe you think most marketing automation platforms are overly complex. Perhaps you believe networking events are largely performative. Or that most “growth hacks” are sound marketing principles with trendy names.

The strongest orange positions emerge from honest observation. What do your customers struggle with that your industry pretends isn’t a problem? What obvious solutions does everyone ignore because they’re not sophisticated enough? What is going on that we all know but don’t say out loud?

Orange doesn’t require controversy—it requires honesty about things others find inconvenient to discuss. The goal isn’t to generate outrage; it’s to create recognition from people who think, “YES! That’s what I think.”

The cost of standing out

Going orange has consequences. Cliff Cooper dealt with council complaints and neighbour disapproval. Your orange marketing will attract similar friction—confused prospects, nervous colleagues, and competitors questioning your professionalism.

This resistance isn’t a bug; it’s a feature. The same distinctiveness that generates complaints generates attention, loyalty, and results. Orange creates polarisation, but polarisation creates engagement.

The alternative—beige marketing that offends no one and inspires no one—carries hidden costs. Invisible brands pay premium prices for attention through advertising spend. Generic messages require larger budgets to achieve breakthroughs. Safe approaches often prove risky in competitive markets.

Most businesses underestimate the cost of being ignored. They calculate the risk of standing out while overlooking the certainty of blending in. In attention economics, invisible equals expensive.

Making the choice

Cooper could have painted his shop dark brown and saved himself considerable hassle. He could have built Orange Amps as another forgettable music equipment company. Instead, he chose luminous orange and created something unforgettable.

Your marketing choice is similar. Continue with careful, committee-approved messaging that sounds like everyone else. Or find your orange—that authentic position that makes it impossible for you to be confused with competitors.

The companies cutting through aren’t the ones with bigger budgets. They’re brave enough to be unmistakably themselves when everyone else sounds like everyone else (although more budget helps – reach, baby!)

Your audience is scanning endless brown storefronts, hoping to find something worth their attention. They spot authentic differences instantly and reward them with engagement, loyalty, and advocacy.

The question isn’t whether you can afford to go orange. It’s whether you can afford to stay beige.

Paint your shop. Deal with the complaints. Your customers are looking for you—but only if they can see you.

This article was written with the assistance of AI.