Just the odd second ago, I ran into this ING Flash advertisement over at Reuters. It praises their Orange Savings Account. The Dutch bank also has commercials running on major American channels (frequently seen on CNN), advertising their unique banking skills. You’ve probably seen them: it’s one with the guy and the dog and the parkbench. Pretty funny so once in a while, that is, if you like surreal jokes.
But back to the orange, for the folks who weren’t aware of it: it’s basically
the national colour of the Netherlands. With a rational (actually, historical) reason: the first (acknowledged) royalty was a prince called Willem, who by coincidence inherited the property of the lands of Orange. Naturally, in the war against Spain (well, not completely Spain, but that’s a long story too) he rose up and eventually led the fight in the Low Lands against the Spanish occupiers.
Since those days, The Dutch have carried on with their orange obsession: football teams, olympic teams and other
(national) sports teams normally run around in orange coloured jerseys. Whole legions of supporters (and hooligans) dress in orange too. If there’s a Dutch team playing in your neighbourhood, don’t be surprised if you see orange coloured faces
Seeing those ING commercials, particularly promoting the ‘Orange Savings accounts’ leaves me with a smile. I never liked the colour orange. It looks stupid, but one way or another, it does fit the Dutch people.