The story behind plum fashion

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Madison Avenue is making like Little Jack Horner, pulling out plum after plum for the presumed delectation of consumers.

Examples of how plum may become the new black for advertisers and media companies include a new Plum Card from American Express, coupon inserts in Sunday newspapers under the RedPlum name and plum-coloured labels for products like Penta water.

There is also Plum TV, a channel available in resort communities; PlumChoice Online, a PC services company; and even books by Janet Evanovich featuring a character called Stephanie Plum. The titles include Plum Lovin’ and Plum Lucky and, coming in January, according to Dori Weintraub of St Martin’s Press, which publishes Evanovich, Plum Spooky.

Trend watchers suggest several reasons so many marketers seem to be going plum loco. One recurring thought is that the success of technology brands like Apple and BlackBerry is giving fruit a good name, hence the proliferation of plums as well as brands like Pinkberry and Red Mango—both frozen yogurts.

Plum and purple colours also “evoke royalty, sophistication,” said Tom Julian, president at the Tom Julian Group in New York, a brand consultancy.

Those shades can appeal to “the emotional side of one's passions and interests,” he added, “the individual desire for zest and to be distinct.”

Julian traces the growing appeal of plum to fall 2005, when “the ‘luxe’ factor emerged in the designer market” and richer hues came into favour.

Plum TV was introduced a year earlier, in Nantucket, Massachusetts, by Chris Glowacki and Tom Scott, and has since been expanded to upscale communities including Aspen, Colorado, and the Hamptons.

“There’s a positive connotation to the name: a plum job, a plum moment; it’s something that’s sweet and natural,” said Richard Kirshenbaum, the co-chairman at Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners in New York, part of MDC Partners. He agreed last week to become the host of Creative Lunch, a talk show that Plum TV is to introduce in the summer.

Scott, who also helped found Nantucket Nectars, received one of the first Plum Cards when American Express introduced them last September. The card is part of the American Express Open line of products aimed at small businesses.

“The plum job, the plum assignment—it’s something you strive for,” said Diego Scotti, vice-president for global advertising at the American Express Co in New York. “We wanted to make the card feel aspirational, special.”

“When we were looking at the colour of the plastic” during the planning stages, “we wanted something classy,” Scotti said, and the choice was a shade “we called burgundy.”

But the company did not want to call it burgundy when marketing it, he added, for fear

of confusion with wine brands. So instead, plum is joining the ranks of Amex colours that also include black, blue, gold, green and platinum.

In December, three months after the Plum Card came out, Valassis Communications, which distributes cents-off coupons and other value offers for marketers, brought out RedPlum. The brand is in newspapers, online (redplum.com), in the mail, in stores and in circulars delivered to home and apartment doors.