For any business, building a brand takes hard work and plenty of patience. Your brand is what you, your employees and your customers see, and it’s what distinguishes you from others. Marketing, design, culture and performance all play a part in making sure the brand image you’re conveying is received by the right people in the way you want it to be received.

When considering your brand, it’s easy to focus on the high-profile, big-ticket items like advertising and signage. At the same time, take a look at your site’s trash and recycling containers. You and your customers may not be aware of it, but those units also play a large role in building your brand.

There’s something about symmetry

Though we may not directly notice it, our brains love symmetry – the sense of harmony and perfect proportion. When things “feel right” our minds relax, and we are put into a peaceful place. When shoppers are relaxed, they are likely to spend.

OK, so what does that have to do with my brand … and trash cans? The short answer: much.

Take another look at your trash cans and think about what you see. If you have more than one, do they match one another? Are they beat up and worn? Do their colors match or complement your primary brand colors?

Each of those elements contributes to the overall feeling of symmetry for your customers. When the waste containers match, it tells customers you are organized and care about their experience. Choosing containers in your brand colors help reinforce and legitimize your brand.

Color is critical

“Color is often overlooked when buying waste receptacles,” said Joe Crum, Director of Marketing and eCommerce for Commercial Zone. “The reality is that the color of those units can go a long way toward building your brand.”

Consider the larger, regional or national brands of c-stores and gas stations. In cases where the primary brand color is red, you’ll often find that the trash and recycling containers are also red. If the brand color is green, most times those same containers are also green.

The resulting symmetry between the color of the receptacles and the brand helps customers feel relaxed. The resulting perceived organization helps them to develop trust, which translates into higher sales.

Thanks to a broad selection of base colors, the PolyTec™ series from Commercial Zone makes it easy and affordable for businesses of any size – 1 location or 12 – to find a waste container color that complements or matches their primary brand colors.

“The color a business chooses for its waste containers really is important,” Crum said. “In many cases, the trash can is the first opportunity a business has to make a statement to its customers.”

Selecting a color that works with the primary brand color not only tells the customers that you care about symmetry, it also tells them you care about even the smallest details.

“And when the customer sees that the details are important to you, they are more likely to believe in your business,” Crum said.

Commercial Zone offers a Custom Solutions program, through which virtually any color can be matched to create a solution that visually reflects any brand and builds a cohesive experience for colors.