Behr is also not the first brand to use the color of the year idea. Color-matching authority Pantone has announced a color of the year since 2000, putting its “finger on the pulse of what we call the zeitgeist” to choose it, executive director Leatrice Eiseman told Adweek last year.
It’s hard to find a paint company that hasn’t followed suit. Sherwin Williams, Dunn-Edwards, Benjamin Moore, Graham & Brown, Glidden/PPG, Valspar, Krylon and Dutch Boy—all of them, come the late summer, announce their own picks for the coming year’s official color. For its part, Minwax even announces a wood stain of the year.
These selections usually come equipped with the sort of atmospheric verbiage one might expect from a carefully assembled marketing effort. Dutch Boy’s Ironside, for example, is a “deep, comforting green” that’s “a richly dimensional hue that soothes and reassures.” Lemonade, Benjamin Moore’s official color for 2024, is a “light, fizzy yellow that provides an instant pick-me-up.”
Which brings us to Behr’s 2024 selection, Cracked Pepper. In truth, the color is just a grayish black, though the brand prefers to term it “a timeless and modern hue that awakens the senses and exudes confidence on every scale.” Behr’s description reads as credible, however, because consumers regard the brand as coming from what Allen calls a “color leadership position” based on both its 76 years in business and its 45-year association with Home Depot.
The youngsters need guidance
Credentials like these can matter especially in the minds of younger shoppers—millennials and Gen Zers who’ve managed to swing the purchase of their first homes.
“Millennials and Gen Z are excited to start projects, but they’re new homeowners,” Home Depot CMO Molly Battin said. “Painting your house is one of the first projects [they] take on, but what we see is they’re a bit stuck and it’s a bit overwhelming.”
Independent research backs up Battin’s observations. A 2017 Harris poll revealed that 52% of millennials wanted professional help in choosing paint colors for their dwellings.
Here is where a retail store having an exclusive partner in paint works out to be mutually beneficial. Behr and Home Depot enjoy authoritative reputations on their own, but combined the effect is stronger still. When both brands pool their expertise to recommend a color, Battin said, “It gives [consumers] the confidence to know that if [they] take on a project, it’s going to look beautiful, it’s going to look on-trend, it’s going to look modern.”
