Essay

When yellow means cheap

By Mike Dwane

There seems to be an English expression for every colour of the rainbow. You see red when you are angry. Feeling blue describes sadness. To be green means to be inexperienced, but you can also be green with envy.

I'm not certain of the origins of these expressions, but one thing I am sure of is that in the language of marketing executives, yellow means cheap.

Loud, garish and craving attention, yellow competes with orange in advertising to shout "Buy me! I don't cost a lot!"

These colours may not have a similar subliminal meaning in Japanese culture. But I do remember that if I needed something quick and cheap to eat, I often found myself eating gyudon in Matsuya, which has a yellow livery, or Yoshinoya, where orange dominates.

IKEA, a byword in Europe for affordable furniture, has a blue-and-yellow colour scheme. As do the German discount supermarkets Aldi and Lidl, which have expanded across Europe in recent years.

I once tried to ring my local Lidl outlet to discover they had no phone number. This is apparently to cut office costs. Mobile phones are handed around between managers coming on and going off duty.

When the founder of Aldi was kidnapped in 1971, a ransom of $3 million (¥259 million) was paid. The victim then went to court to try to have some of the ransom written off as a tax-deductible business expense!

There are different versions of this story but it certainly plays into a national stereotype many Europeans have of the Germans as frugal, or even stingy.

Michael O'Leary, the CEO of Europe's biggest low-cost airline, Ryanair, once said: "Germans will crawl naked over broken glass to get low fares."

Mr. O'Leary is the loud, brash, rude and often foul-mouthed boss of a company that has grown from an obscure Irish regional carrier to the second biggest airline in Europe.

He has previously announced, hopefully with tongue in cheek, plans to make passengers stand on short-haul flights and to charge passengers for using the toilets.

Still, it seems customers will endure almost any insult to buy cheap air fares. And that is what Ryanair excels at.

One thing I miss about Japan is the service an ordinary customer can expect. From the hot towels to free refills, JAL offers a level of service most European airlines have long since abandoned. It will be interesting to see if Peach and the other low-cost airlines that have set up in Japan are successful.

Ryanair's colour scheme is, of course, yellow and blue. And EasyJet, Europe's second biggest "no-frills" airline, has orange aircraft.

黄色が「安い」を意味する時

欧州のマーケティングの世界では、黄色は目立つ色とされ、ディスカウント店のイメージカラーに使われていることが多い。安い家具を販売するIKEAやアイルランド発祥のあの格安航空会社もそうだ。

The Japan Times ST: November 22, 2013