Pantone is seen as an industry tool and the definitive guide to colour, and recently made small collectable products such as mugs, bags and kitchenware. But could we make the brand more engaging to new and current customers in a way that’s innovative and surprising, while keeping their unique ability to colour match at the heart of the concept?

As our advertising budget was zero, paying for PR wasn’t an option, we needed to rely on our audience to love our idea enough to pass it on and do the advertising for us.

The Queen has always colour matched her clothes perfectly, but it’s something we never truly notice, until someone points it out. Being the icon of colour matching, Pantone were the perfect people to highlight the Queen’s colour matching ability.

By turning sixty of the Queen’s single colour outfits into an iconic Pantone swatch book, we were able to stand out with wit and humour. And not just being a spectator to the Jubilee but part of it we introduced a global audience to the celebrations, who may not have been interested before.

The Queen and Pantone are a perfect match.

As the Jubilee approached we noticed the Queen always colour matched her dresses, hats and coats perfectly. To celebrate 60 years of her reign we redesigned the iconic Pantone swatch book into a unique and limited edition Pantone colour guide detailing 60 of her famous single colour outfits. Matching the exact Pantone reference to the exact date and location she wore them through her 60-year reign. With this idea we could stand out in a saturated marketing period full of other brands creating Jubilee-themed campaigns. The ultimate outcome would be for blogs to talk for us.

With a budget of £5000 that could only be spent of production, and no money for PR, we needed lots of free publicity, which meant adorers talking for us.

We approached Buckingham Palace, who loved the book so much they made it official Diamond Jubilee memorabilia, royally endorsing Pantone Queen. The highest honour the palace could bestow. Next we sent the books to a small group of influential design blogs and publications. After a day we’d hit 1.2m sites and trended on Twitter. At the latest count we are on 1.68m websites. Not bad for zero marketing budget.