The contentious colors of Germany's corporate rainbow

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.

"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.

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."

"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.

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.

"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.

"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.