While making purchases or considering a new purchase, people are intrigued by the visual appeal of the product. But, Colors and their meaning to us in the subconscious mind take into account how the product looks. Then it relates its visuals with our past experiences and emotions. And once the visuals of the product are tapped in with the right emotions, we tend to buy it. As a result, most purchases are based on impulse.
This is an important attribute of buyers that companies need to keep in mind while marketing their products. Keeping the aesthetics of a product is of prime importance as it has the ability to catch the attention of consumers and tap into their emotions. And the most important part of making a product aesthetically pleasing is choosing the right colors.
Colors are the first thing that any consumer notices on a product. It is the color on the packaging or on the product itself that grabs the attention of buyers before any text or image. Colors have the potential to arouse different feelings among consumers. Different colors have different effects on consumers. Warm colors tend to give rise to feelings of passion, energy, or excitement while cool colors make us feel calm, relaxed, and tranquil.
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List of Colors and Meaning
Here is a list of which feelings different color invoke among consumers and what does each color signify:
Red
The color red is mostly associated with love, passion, or danger. It also invokes the feeling of fear and urgency. This is why traffic lights, close buttons and stop signs are all red in color. Red also possesses the ability to increase one’s heartbeat. And when that happens, adrenaline is pumped into our blood, increasing our breathing rate. This physiological effect of red makes it a perfect choice for clearance sales.
Red also represents blood and first-aid kit supplies can easily take advantage of this association.
Black
Black signifies elegance and formality. It also represents luxury and power. This is why many luxury perfumes and vehicle brands extensively use black. Black is also very versatile and can be combined with almost any other color. In fact, it is better to combine black with other colors as total black represents darkness and evil, something that consumers would want to avoid at all costs.
Blue
The color blue is present everywhere; from the skies to the oceans. It represents openness and serenity. Hence, it invokes feelings of tranquility, peacefulness, and calmness. The color blue thus relaxes the consumer and makes him or her feel at ease. This is the opposite of red as red stirs urgency in the customer while blue calm him or her down.
Blue also represents trust, loyalty, sincerity, and compassion. This is why a lot of banks prefer to use the blue color in their logos.
Green
Green is representative of nature. It reminds the viewer of green plants, open meadows, and deep forests. Thus, it invokes the feeling of freshness, purity, and health. It also signifies growth and vitality. Green is an excellent choice for products that include natural ingredients in their manufacture, for example, spices and beauty products.
Green must be considered whenever the brand wants to convey the message that its product is pure, fresh, and healthy.
Yellow
Yellow is quite similar to red in its significance. It too increases the heart rate to an extent and excites the consumer. But what sets yellow apart from red is that while red represents danger, yellow represents happiness. This is evident from the fact that emojis and smilies are mostly yellow in color.
Yellow also represents optimism, hope, and cheerfulness. Yellow is also a very attention-grabbing color owing to its brightness, making it another suitable choice for clearance sales. However, one must be cautious with the usage of yellow as its overuse can cause anxiety.
White
White is the universal color of peace and tranquility. It also represents purity and goodness. It is a very good choice for an accent color for branded color palettes as it signifies newness and youthfulness.
Purple
Purple is related to royalty and luxury. It is representative of power, wealth, and novelty. It can be used for marketing products that are unique or new to the market. This is because purple signifies mystery, magic, and creativity.
It invokes curiosity among the consumers and urges them to find out more about a product or brand, causing interest and demand for the brand.
Pink
Pink is a gentle color with a tender and non-threatening appearance. It is associated with innocence and childhood. This is why we see so many brands that sell baby products using pink. It is also associated with femininity and is an excellent choice for products that are targeted toward women and girls.
Orange
The color orange causes excitement and a surge of energy among customers. The bright nature of orange also makes it highly visible. Orange is the color of sunshine and represents motivation, enthusiasm, determination, and courage. Therefore, it is widely used for exercise equipment, energy drinks, hardware tools, and safety tools.
Points to consider while choosing a color
The right colors can make a customer attached to a brand. However, if the wrong color is chosen, customers would choose to steer clear of a brand. Colour can make or break the mood of the customer. Hence, choosing the right color while marketing a brand or product is of utmost importance. Following is the list of points that you need to keep in mind while choosing a color for your brand or product:
Gender
Whether your customer is more feminine or masculine will decide how the colors of your brand or product are perceived. Though every color more or less has the same biological effect on everyone, the more intrinsic responses to a particular color may vary from individual to individual. It has been observed that females prefer softer colors like pink and white while men prefer stronger hues like red, black, and orange.
Age
The average age of your target audience also decides how your brand colors will be perceived. For instance, children are attracted to pastel shades and bright tints, young adults prefer playful tints like orange while adults like subtler colors like gray and brown.
Tone
Consider the tone of the product when you choose a color for it. Is the product luxurious or is it for casual use? Is the product elegant and subtle or bold and playful? These factors are very important and must be kept in mind while picking a color. The color you pick will create a unique image of the product. Therefore, you must pick a color that goes well with the tone of your brand and product for it will help people understand what really your brand stands for.
Values
Your company values are reflected by the color palette that you pick. For example, a darker palette including shades of blacks and grays will represent a high-end and luxurious brand while playful colors like orange and purple will represent a bold and relaxed brand.
Colors also put in minds of the consumers the price of products. For example, a consumer will consider a product more valuable if it contains tones of grey but will consider the same product as somewhat cheap if it is yellow.
Brand logo
Always match the color of your brand logo with the color of your stores or vice-versa. Work closely with retailers and make sure that your logo color and store color are from the same family. You would not want to choose different colors for different uses. This depicts unorganized planning and poor branding. People will have a difficult time recognizing your brand if you use a wide range of colors. Therefore, to market your brand in the right way, be restricted to the use of a few tints from the same color family.
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Cultural differences
If you market your products for a global audience or plan to do so, take time to research the impact of different colors on different cultures. Then choose a color that is well perceived across the globe and people from diverse cultures can connect. This will ensure you higher returns at the local level.
You can always use different advertising strategies for different cultures, but you can’t change your brand logo or the color of your website for each culture. Hence, strategically pick a color that every culture relates to.
Pro tip: If you need to create different advertisements for separate audiences using the same color scheme, use AdCreative.ai. It is a digital tool that automatically designs several ads for your product by implementing artificial intelligence. You can choose which ad out of them would be suitable for which particular culture. What you need to do is upload your company logo, write a tag line, upload the product image and choose the brand colors. AdCreative.ai lets you choose up to three colors for generating one set of ads.
Therefore, while choosing a color, keep in mind your target audience. Who are you selling to? Is your ideal buyer feminine or masculine? What is the age group of your consumers? All these factors are a priority when choosing your color palette.
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Conclusion
Colors have the power to play with the minds of the consumer. They decide how a brand will be perceived by the people. They possess the efficacy to change the minds of buyers, influence their choice, and initiate purchases based on impulse alone. As such, colors are a priority for the successful marketing of a brand.
I hope this article helped you in understanding the effect that colors have on consumers and how colors can affect the image of a brand.
