We did something disturbing.

This week, we decided to run an in-house experiment playing with some of the most sacred assets brands can own: their colours.

The result is off-putting. A weird, uncanny valley-esque experience that messes with your senses and makes you second guess reality for a minute.

But more than just morbid curiosity, the experiment was designed to make a point: brand colours are embedded shortcuts that help us make sense of the world.

Let’s get into it.

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Coca-Cola, God and the Titanic

The three most recognisable words across all human languages. There is no verifiable way to prove this is true, but apparently “Coca-Cola”, “God” and “Titanic” are the three most recognised words in the world. At least that’s what every trivia master wants you to believe.

So you can be forgiven for feeling like this visual is a sin. Coca-Cola dressed up in Pepsi Blue is illegal in 127 countries. And drinking Pepsi dressed in Coke Red will get you instantly fired from any ad agency on the planet. These stats are definitely more made up than the first one.

Our Aussie readers will find this abhorrent. Two breakfast staples, entirely destroyed with a simple colour swap.

So why does it feel so wrong?

Our brains process colours faster than words. So before you even read the Monster logo, you are registering the Red Bull colour and it creates a mismatch.

One cue says “this is Monster”. The other cue says “this is Red Bull”. Your brain freaks out because it cannot reconcile them cleanly.

There is a friction here that makes something familiar feel very unfamiliar, and it can make you feel a little bit uneasy.

But it proves a broader point around colour theory.

Colour psychology is more complicated than ‘blue means calm’.

We have been taught to treat colour like a universal code: blue builds trust, red creates urgency, green signals health. It’s a cute idea. It’s just a shame that these neat little visuals break that concept entirely.

Colour does not arrive with a fixed meaning. Blue can feel calm, clinical, premium, sporty, aggressive, corporate and more. It depends on the category, culture and cues around it.

Blue does not make Red Bull feel like Red Bull. Red Bull has made blue feel like Red Bull. The strongest colour associations are not inherent to the colours, but they are built through repetition from the brands.

Colour is not owned. It is learned.

These two Nestle brands are a brilliant example.

They share the same packaging format and Nestle has clearly cracked the code in terms of packaging layout playbook here. The logos are in the same place. The visuals are in the same place. The names and claims too.

At first, they both feel familiar and acceptable.

But upon further inspection, they are odd and out of place.

No brand starts with a colour that inherently belongs to them. Milo did not invent green, nor Nesquik yellow. But what they have built is repetition: the same colour across packs, ads, shelves and decades of impressions in pantries.

Eventually, the colour becomes the shorthand for the brand. Because people have learned that green means Milo. If Nesquik swapped to green tomorrow, it would cause mini-moments of chaos in supermarkets, shopping carts and kitchens all across the country.

People would instinctively grab the “green one” and then face the wrath of a 3-year-old when they tantrum “I WANTED A MILO NOT A NESQUIK”.

Context is everything.

In real shopping conditions, people are not carefully reading every pack. They are scanning shelves, using colour, form, logo fragments and familiar patterns to find what they already know.

That means colour can do several jobs simultaneously:

• get a known brand noticed

• help shoppers locate it fast

• distinguish it from direct competitors

• carry a product or flavour system across a range

• signal that a new product still belongs to the same brand

A brand colour is not just “the hero colour on the pack”. It can be an orientation device.

Context is critical in the Aussie confectionery aisle. Brands use colour blocking to great effect. Allen’s is always red. The Natural Confectionery Co. is always white. Swapping them makes each brand harder to shop.

And for the colour theorists out there - you could argue that white makes Allen’s feel healthier. And red makes Natural Confectionery feel more playful. But when they change outfits, one thing is clear: their brand memory structures are broken and it all becomes a lot harder to navigate.

The danger of changing a colour system

This is where brand teams can get themselves into trouble. A colour system can start to feel tired internally long before it feels tired to the people buying it.

But familiarity is often the point. The red, blue, purple or green that feels obvious to the people working on the brand may be doing years of recognition work in the aisle.

That does not mean brands should never evolve. It means colour should not be treated as a cosmetic decision. Changing it can alter how quickly shoppers find you, how confidently they recognise you, and whether your pack still feels like it belongs to the brand they know.

The question is not simply, does this look better? 
It is: what recognition are we giving up in the process?