Using color to position your brand.

I devalue the importance of color in regard to intrinsic meaning and put a most of the value in color as a signal for positioning. Meaning is just too squishy for me, especially across regions and cultures.

BUT, we're already in the business of building "meaning" with brands, so that meaning gets stored regardless of color as long as people are becoming familiar and comfortable with the brand. Despite what red might "mean," and maybe even if it has perfect “meaning,” you don't want to be the red one when there is already one or more red options.

For example, dirt bikes. Honda: red, Yamaha: blue, KTM: orange, Suzuki: yellow, Kawasaki: green.

I don’t even ride MX but I remember those brands/colors.

This is not a hard position I have and I'm going to read this article later, so I could be moved more toward squishy meaning. It's just going to be very hard to beat the UTILITY of color.