Germany's Sparkasse banks get to keep their true colors
July 21, 2016
Red is apparently the color of love, passion and international banking disputes: Germany's highest appellate court has decided in favor of letting the Sparkasse group keep its trademark hue of red.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
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The contentious colors of Germany's corporate rainbow
Colors are key when it comes to distinguishing a brand. They may be bright, cheerful and reminiscent of childhood, but they can also be the source of conflicts. Countless businesses have fought over a number of hues.
German savings banks known as Sparkassen have built their identity around traffic light red, but so has the Spanish bank Santander. The two have been fighting over the color for years. After Germany's Federal Patent Court ruled against trademark protection of the color in the country, the Federal Court of Justice ruled in their favor. The Sparkassen will be able to keep their red after all.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Puchner
Orange: Brandt
"The art is in standing out without being unsettling," says logo expert Silvia Goldhammer of Goldmarke advertising agency. A clear communications strategy that will stick with the viewer is vital, she says. The German biscuit-maker Brandt tries to achieve this with its brash orange look.
Image: imago/Schöning
Yellow: DHL
Yellow can be seen all over Germany's landscape of colorful brands. Langenscheidt is known for its bright yellow foreign language dictionaries, while delivery service DHL has bright yellow trucks and packages. "Clear, unmixed colors like yellow are especially recognizable," Goldhammer explains. "They seem to force their way into our sub-consciousness more than many other attributes."
Image: AP
Magenta: Deutsche Telekom
"There can be no logo without color," says Goldhammer. Deutsche Telekom, Europe's largest telecommunications company, has built its own logo on the color magenta. But like Sparkasse, it is not alone in doing so. It filed a suit against an American website that used the color too, but it lost and now Telekom must share the hue.
Image: dapd
Purple: Milka
There's no such thing as a cow with purple spots? Not if you ask the marketers behind the German chocolate brand Milka, which chose purple as its distinguishing color. Why purple? Silvia Goldhammer has the answer: "Chocolate has to do with the memories of childhood. The color purple communicates exactly that." We're put face to face with the gentle hue very early on in life.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Milka
Blue: Nivea
"Pantone 280 C," to be precise, is the dark blue shade used by Nivea to market its skincare products. But its rival Unilever has requested that Nivea's hold on blue be dropped, claiming that dozens of competitors use the color as part of their marketing presence. A court battle last year ruled in Nivea's favor but the battle isn't over. The case now heads to Germany's Federal Patent Court.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Bockwoldt
Green: Flixbus
"Ride green!" is the motto for the long-distance bus company Flixbus. The slogan fits perfectly with the company's emphasis on sustainability, it claims. "A matching color makes or breaks a word-and-image logo," according to Goldhammer.
Image: picture alliance/PIXSELL/D. Javorovic
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The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) resolved a long-standing dispute between Santander Bank and German savings bank Sparkasse regarding each bank's red logo, deciding in favor of Sparkasse's trademark color.
Both of the financial institutions had been using the color red for branding purposes for decades. However, with Santander expanding globally to include banking services in Germany, Sparkasse claimed the Spanish bank engaged in copyright infringement, leading to a major legal row.
Santander had initially managed to succeed in canceling Sparkasse registered trademark last year, arguing that colors were not characteristics of products and services.
However, Germany's highest appellate court said that under certain circumstances colors could exclusively be associated with certain products and services. The BGH also stressed that Sparkasse spent more than 130 million euros ($143 million) annually for such branding purposes across its network of 15,000 braches in Germany.
Santander, by contrast, holds only about 320 branches in Germany and has had a shorter history of asserting its brand identity, having entered the country's banking sector in the 2000s following a series of takeovers.
Sparkasse President Georg Fahrenschon said the court's decision was an important one.
"Sparkasse's red color provides customers with a sense of orientation in the marketplace," he said.
In a separate case, the foreign language software company Rosetta Stone had previously asserted in front of German courts that colors can be protected as trademarks.
Unexpected outcome
The verdict came as a surprise after court proceedings had shown significant methodological shortcomings on part of the Sparkasse group in proving that the majority of its customers associated the particular hue of red used by Sparkasse exclusively with the financial institution.
It remains unclear what impact the court decision will have on Santander's operations in Germany. The bank's brand identity is used across the globe for the sponsoring of sports tournaments and other events.
