The Psychology of Colour in Marketing and Branding (no really)
 |
| Colour |
Attributing meaning to our business choices is both crucial and a bit of a stab in the dark.
Yes, it’s important to name our company something relevant,
memorable and non-offensive but there’s no real right or wrong answer.
Yes, we need exciting logos that express our brand,
products/services and our ‘vibe’ and yes, our marketing efforts must convey the
same …. it’s just that agonising over them for longer than is necessary can
become unproductive and quite frankly, a real head f*#k.
At the end of the day, these things must appeal to us and
ideally, to our target audience as well.
There are many guides out there espousing the meanings of different colours; the emotions they evoke and the ones that will subconsciously
make people go out and spend approximately one trillion dollars on our wares. And
to be honest, I’ve written one such guide - it’s on another of my hard drives and it’s
probably not worth me dredging it up. Not because it’s not well written
(OBVIOUSLY! *winking emoticon*) but because I recently read an article that has given me a whole
new appreciation of colour and its role in marketing and branding.
It was written by a clever chap by the name of Gregory Ciotti
and this is what he wrote:
Why does color
psychology invoke so much conversation … but is backed with so little factual data?
As research shows,
it’s likely because elements such as personal preference, experiences,
upbringing, cultural differences, context, etc., often muddy the effect
individual colors have on us. So the idea that colors such as yellow or purple are able to invoke some sort of hyper-specific
emotion is about as
accurate as your standard Tarot card reading.
Gregory goes on to cite research backed insights on how colour
plays a part in persuasion. Including:
And in regards to
the role that color plays in branding, results from studies such asThe Interactive Effects of Colors show that the relationship between
brands and color hinges on the perceived
appropriateness of
the color being used for the particular brand (in other words, does the color
"fit" what is being sold).
The study Exciting
Red and Competent Blue also
confirms that purchasing intent is greatly affected by colors due to the impact
they have on how a brand is perceived. This means that colors influence how
consumers view the "personality" of the brand in question (after all,
who would want to buy a Harley Davidson motorcycle if they didn’t get the
feeling that Harleys were rugged and cool?).
Additional studies have revealed that our brains prefer
recognizable brands, which makes color incredibly important when
creating a brand identity.
It has even been suggested in Color
Research & Application that it is of paramount importance for
new brands to specifically target logo colors that ensure differentiation from entrenched competitors (if the
competition all uses blue, you'll stand out by using purple).
The problem, he says, is when people start painting colours
with a broad, generalising brush:
Certain colors DO
broadly align with specific traits (e.g., brown with ruggedness, purple with
sophistication, and red with excitement). But nearly every
academic study on
colors and branding will tell you that it’s far more important
for your brand’s colors to support the personality you want to portray instead of trying to
align with stereotypical color associations.
Consider the inaccuracy of making broad statements such as
“green means calm.”The
context is missing; sometimes
green is used to brand environmental issues such as Timberland’s G.R.E.E.N standard,
but other times it’s meant to brand financial spaces such as Mint.com.
The article is very comprehensive and in some sections, quite technical. It goes on to discuss different reactions to
colour by men and women and the importance of a name (eg. I hate ‘brown’ but am
partial to ‘mocha’).
The upshot is that
colour is important and can be used as an association with a particular brand
and its personality – but only in context – and there is no magic rule book out
there that can tell you black = evil, white = good.
You can read the article in its entirety [here].
