Tiffany & Co. broke its iconic brand color out of containment to promote ocean conservation

Tiffany & Co. owns one of the most tightly guarded brand colors in the world. With one campaign, the company broke that iconic blue out of its strict containment—and it paid off.

{“blockType”:”mv-promo-block”,”data”:{“imageDesktopUrl”:”https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/09\/2026-IBD_social-share-2-16×9-1.jpg”,”imageMobileUrl”:”https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/09\/2026-IBD_social-share-1-1-1×1-1.jpg”,”eyebrow”:””,”headline”:”Meet the world\u0027s most innovative design companies”,”dek”:””,”subhed”:””,”description”:””,”ctaText”:”See the List”,”ctaUrl”:”https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/innovation-by-design\/list?utm_source=fcwebsite\u0026utm_medium=promo_block\u0026utm_campaign=IBD26″,”theme”:{“bg”:”#f4f4f4″,”text”:”#2b2d30″,”eyebrow”:”#9aa2aa”,”subhed”:”#ffffff”,”buttonBg”:”#444444″,”buttonHoverBg”:”#ef5b24″,”buttonText”:”#ffffff”},”imageDesktopId”:91604521,”imageMobileId”:91604520,”shareable”:false,”slug”:””,”wpCssClasses”:””}}

The campaign, titled “1837 Tiffany Blue Conservation,” was created by the agency L&C in partnership with Pantone. When it launched in March 2025, it was the first time that the brand had ever committed marketing spend to promote its decades of ocean conservation efforts rather than to feature luxury goods. It’s the winner of a Fast Company Innovation by Design Award in marketing and advertising.

The campaign’s conceit was simple: It placed the recognizable Pantone color square, along with the words “1837 Blue,” over stunning images of ocean vistas. In practice, it presented the brand to customers in a whole new light, and its double-take effect netted Tiffany more than 25 million social media impressions.

Tiffany has been using its signature blue since its founding in 1837. The color was officially trademarked in 1998, giving Tiffany the sole rights to use it for its iconic jewelry boxes and branding materials. The hue’s exclusivity means that most people instantly associate it with some of the world’s most luxurious goods. “1837 Tiffany Blue Conservation” used that established recognition to introduce customers to its ocean conservation efforts, which have historically existed separately from the brand’s mainstream platform.

In 2002, Tiffany became one of the first major jewelry brands to stop using coral in its pieces. Since then, the brand has awarded more than $55 million to organizations that support coral and marine conservation. Its grantees have helped to protect more than 15 million square kilometers of ocean across 30 countries—an area larger than the U.S. itself. 

According to Gian Carlo Lanfranco, cofounder of L&C, each image in the campaign comes from a part of the ocean that Tiffany has helped to protect—and all of them were painstakingly compared to Tiffany Blue to find the closest possible matches. 

“There’s creative magic in extracting something from a legendary brand like Tiffany and showcasing it in a way that is fresh and different, but puts the purpose of what they do at the center,” Lanfranco says.

investment News