For over 60 years, Pantone has led the global industry conversation of color. But the advent of AI brought new tension to the world. And with it, the need for a new dialogue.

Our brief was to launch Viva Magenta as the 2023 Color of The Year, using the moment to lead the global design community and wider public in an educational conversation. Examining the Zeitgeist, we’d need to leverage Viva Magenta’s boundary-breaking story to bring the color to life in a way that sparked exploration.

Our task was to develop a holistic, unified campaign that went beyond the ordinary to showcase how Viva Magenta manifests across art, science, and technology.

The objective was to position Pantone as a forward-looking brand partner. Success included awareness, relevant coverage, like-minded brand partnerships, and sales of co-branded products. Key KPIs included global impressions and organic social conversation.

In 2023, Pantone partnered with AI to redefine the way we see color. Welcome to The Magentaverse.

Viva Magenta is a hybrid color that bridges the organic and digital. For its launch as Color of The Year, we had to create what it envisioned. So we turned to the unconventional, partnering a team of multidisciplinary creatives with AI to explore the edges of art and science.

Our experiment pressured the relationship—and tension—between new technology and human creativity. Working with generative tool Midjourney, our team would create the visual manifestation of Viva Magenta, incorporating its ideals to curate a world that examines the connections between nature and technology.

A key visual served as an invitation into an optimistic new ecosystem dubbed “The Magentaverse.” This world was then brought to life through an interactive experience at ARTECHOUSE, brand partnerships including NASA and Motorola, and a live event at Art Basel Miami Beach.

Pantone selects each Color of the Year based on its alignment with the current global Zeitgeist and forward-looking design developments. For 2023, Pantone’s group of global trend forecasters and color experts selected Viva Magenta, a color that challenges boundaries and inspires experimentation. The goal was to showcase how this color manifests itself in life through partnerships with like-minded collaborators. Pantone aimed to inspire the creative community across industries to recognize the power of color. The campaign invites viewers on a journey, highlighting how Viva Magenta can create new ways of seeing the world.

Viva Magenta key messages included:

Fearlessness to explore “the new normal”

Self-expression without restraint

Inspiration from nature and what is real

A hybrid identity without traditional divides

Campaign assets were developed in collaboration with AI, pairing a multidisciplinary team of artists, fabricators, and strategists with technology to bring them to life with an immersive digital installation.

To begin our experiment, we developed a set of guiding tenets alongside an innovative creative equation that merged technical craft with artistic vision. This allowed us to create powerful AI prompts. The result was not one, but hundreds of dynamic images. Some challenged us, others required a new approach. But with each session, we built out our brand story, brought to life through a new world of cocreation: The Magentaverse.

Launched at Art Basel Miami Beach through a highly-coordinated media strategy, The Magentaverse was brought to life through social, activations, and partner products. The launch included personal experimentation and an education exchange with groundbreaking partners, including NASA.

We wanted to bring these dynamic and euphoric images to life for the first time ever in a public experience. We partnered with ARTECHOUSE who then transformed the images into a multi-sensory exhibit, utilizing the latest technological methods, to immerse visitors in the world of Viva Magenta.

This exhibition, MAGENTAVERSE, features 10,000 square feet of interactive installations that enable visitors to explore color in a space where the digital and natural collide. Each offers a unique approach to creative collaboration with technology. In C22H20O13, guests can interact with digital visuals projected onto a larger-than-life CNC-milled flower, triggering a digital world with organic life. Vis Viva allows anyone to introduce gravity into a galaxy of planets, impacting orbits in real time. In Vibrant Strings, explorers play an LED instrument made of magenta strings. Throughout, co-branded partner experiences offer everyone a deeper look at Viva Magenta through the lens of culture.

The Magentaverese is a space where art, science, and technology intersect, allowing all to revel in an experience that challenges and inspires.

In the first 24 hours, Pantone’s Color of the Year received 10 billion impressions, totaling 53 billion to date. The campaign earned 739 digital and 344 broadcast placements. Additionally, over 65,000 people have immersed themselves into the brand message via the Magentaverse ARTECHOUSE experience.

With over 20 million organic views, our Instagram hero image garnered more engagement in the first 12 hours than the 2022 image in the first 12 months. Additionally, searches for Pantone Color of The Year jumped 25%, making Viva Magenta the most searched in Pantone history.

Our conversation spanned the spectrum, making its way to both Good Morning America and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Additionally, Motorola's special edition Viva Magenta phone sold out in just 10 minutes.