Writing about (and talking about writing about and talking about talking about writing about — you get the idea) tools all day, we hear a lot about branding, especially from those who work in the field. You’d be flat amazed by how much effort (and cash) goes into training you to Pavlovianly think “BOSCH!” when you see blue power tools or “DEWALT!” when you see yellow ones. So when a company changes the color of tools, it’s usually a much bigger deal than you might suspect. Hence why we took notice when we started seeing green tools from Stanley.
I know. You’re probably thinking: “Why the hell are you babbling about the color of tools? I just want the damn thing to work. I don’t care what color it is!” And you’re not wrong. In fact, that’s the idea (at least officially) behind the green tools: Stanley’s R&D folks discovered that the green tapes are easier to see than the classic yellow-and-black, so they produced a whole line of ‘em. As far as I’m concerned, that’s pretty cool. If you can see green better than yellow, hell, make ‘em green. Or fluorescent orange. Or glow-in-the-dark pink. Whatever gets the job done.
(I bet folks would be less likely to steal the glow-in-the-dark pink ones.)
But what do you think? Try to be painfully honest here: Would you buy a green tape over a yellow one if they’re functionally the same otherwise?