Know Your Colours

By Hailey Cheng

Red can stimulate hunger, blue promotes calmness, and yellow provides an energizing boost…

Color is not just something visual, nor just to appeal to the human eye, but is a powerful tool that helps to define our feelings and guide our actions. In the dimension of branding, marketers use the power of color to evoke feelings and create lasting impressions that could impact on the success of the brand. Color psychology is important for businesses that want to connect with their audience and stand out in a competitive market. As we dive deeper into this concept, we can explore how different colors influence perceptions and behaviors, and how brands can strategically use these insights to their advantage.

The Effects of Color - The Spectrum

Colours often establish the consumer’s first impression of the brand or product. The consumers attach feelings they have about a certain colour to the product. Although the scientific exploration of colour psychology is still new, many have shown interest in the nature and impact of colour. Now, consider this: do you feel energized when you see red? Does the color blue make you feel calm and relaxed? Or, what do these colours symbolize and mean to the consumer? Why is color such a powerful force in our lives? What effects can it have on our minds and bodies? While color perceptions are to a certain degree subjective, some color effects are universally recognized.

In the spectrum of colours, colours in the areas of red are known as warm colours, including red, yellow and orange. These colours build up emotion ranging from warmth and comfort to feelings of anger and danger.

Colours on the blue side of the spectrum that are cool colours include blue, purple and green. These colours can be described as calm, but can also contrast to mind feelings of sadness.

Knowledge of how colors influence consumer perception is important to brands that would like to appeal to their public. Each color not only represents unique values and emotions, but also influences the behavior of consumers when handling goods and services. Let us now see the impacts of the various colors, starting with the cool colors that have a calming and trustworthy effect, then proceed to the warm colors that create energy and excitement.

Colour Breakdown

Cold tones

Blue: Blue is the most popular color in the world, with 57% of men and 35% of women naming blue as their preferred color. A lot of companies also appear to believe so, and as a result, blue is the most popular logo color option, with 33% of top brands using blue in their logos. Blue stands for and connotes wisdom, hope, reason, and peace. Tech companies like Facebook and Twitter use the color blue in their apps to make them appear more reliable and trustworthy, a quality that gets corporations to collect more users' information. On the negative side, blue also has a negative connotation associated with it. Blue foods in nature do not exist, making blue an appetite suppressant. Blue is also a color that represents sadness and unfriendliness.

Purple: Purple is the color of royalty and superiority. Tyrian purple was used by high-ranking royal officials, and it was more valuable than gold during that era. Due to ancient traditions, the color purple forms a wise, wealthy, and rich impression that conveys superiority. Businesses can use the color purple to convey a superior product, service, or even an experience. Purple can also depict moodiness, dissipation, and excess. As purple has more feminine associations, brands like Hallmark use its tone as a nod to its female audience. Only a few brands use purple, making their company stand out from the rest.

Green: Green represents life. Likely to make one think of grass, trees, and bushes, green brings about feelings of calmness, health, and freshness. But because of its uncooked nature, green can also mean boredom and blandness. Shops like Whole Foods use green to represent their brand of high quality and fresh products. The company states itself as "America's healthiest grocery store," so the use of a color that is clean and fresh falls into their company’s promise.

Warm tones

Red: Red is a powerful colour. It is associated with excitement, power, fearlessness and passion. In sales, call-to-action features often choose the colour red to promote their product because it emphasizes a sense of urgency. Red can also have a physical impact, and the power to make people feel hungry. However, red can highlight and foster negative connotations just as easily. Representing anger, danger and even promoting warnings. Disney’s Inside Out even represents their character Anger to be a red and fiery specimen.

Orange: Orange is a bright colour that conveys confidence, creativity and courage. Because of its fun nature, orange works well with non-cooperative brands. Orange also produces a warm essence associated with the sun. Yet, the colour also has not-so-sunny connotations– generating feelings of frustration, deprivation and sluggishness. It may also come across as immature or ignorant. In fact, 29% of people rank orange as their least favourite colour. Nickelodeon’s icon orange splat is one of the most well-known orange logos, bringing up feelings of creativity and immaturity, matching up with Nickelodeon's quirky branding.

Yellow: Similar to orange, yellow can emphasize youthfulness and happiness. It is the colour of smiley faces, rubber ducks and such, which are all icons of happiness and nostalgia. Brands use yellow to generate a touch of optimism, warmth and extroversion. However, yellow can also highlight feelings of fear and anxiety. Police use the colour yellow to tape traffic lights, street signs and more. McDonalds uses a yellow arc to make use of yellow’s happiness and positivity. Its yellow symbol, along with an appetizer-inducing red creates a youthful and fun association with the fast food chain.

In essence, colour psychology plays a vital role in shaping our emotions and behaviors, making it a crucial tool in branding and marketing. Colours like red, yellow and orange are known to connote feelings of warmth and happiness, and can also stimulate one’s appetite. But in contrast, warm colours like blue, green and purple can evoke feelings of calmness, trust and quality. Understanding these colour effects can allow businesses to strategically choose colours that align with their brand, product identity and target market to further enhance brand recognition and customer engagement.

As we continue to explore the impact of colours, it becomes clear that colours are not just for visual impact but visual influencers of our emotional appeal and physiological responses.

By employing this knowledge, brands can create lasting impressions and shape consumer actions. Ultimately, the thoughtful application of color can transform a brand's presence and impact in a competitive marketplace, encouraging brands to leverage this knowledge for lasting impressions and consumer loyalty. Whether it's evoking trust with blue, energy with red, or happiness with yellow, color used strategically can truly make a brand pop and feel more worthwhile.