How Color Psychology Affects Your Branding
Color psychology is a much controversial topic in marketing as a lot discussions have been done about how colors affect your brand.
Many of you would also question this color theory and would keep thinking about how some colors can persuade users to be far more actionable in making the final purchase.
But…
You really cannot imagine how color theory affects your brand image and your consumers’ approach towards your brand.
What is the Color Theory?
Color theory basically represents a color wheel describing all primary, secondary and tertiary colors, along with the various combinations that these colors make.
This identification allows you to experiment with different colors and use a variety of them for your brands.
Here is the Color Wheel:
Now what is Color Psychology?
Color psychology is something more than the color theory. It is far more relevant to marketing than just a plain description of different color types.
Color Psychology tells you about how colors influence our perceptions, our tastes and our buying patterns.
For instance, the color Red represent passion, excitement and confidence and we can see how brands like Coca Cola and Redbull use this particular colors in their branding.
Now…
Let’s move on to some Deep Insights About Colors and the Elements that Affect Their Selection
Colors and Genders:
You might have heard about how different colors represent certain gender. The most common is pink and blue.
We have been reinforced by this concept of blue representing boys and pink representing girls since childhood. In fact the love for pink in girls is constantly reminded to them since they are born.
Likewise brands also keep this thing in mind and use this color psychology according to certain genders.
The brands with men as their target market use the colors that are specifically liked by men such as blue, black and grey.
On the other hand brands that have women accessories use colors like pink, red and purple.
Now, other than this blue and pink stereotyping, there are other colors also which are associated by men and women.
Hallock did some great research on how men and women have different favorites in colors:
Colors and Emotions:
Now, the other factor which has the highest impact on the selection of colors for a brand is the ‘Emotions’ attached to that particular brand.
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Emotions play a much vital role in creating the image of your product.
And what do you think I mean by emotions here?
It is the perception or the feeling that arises when you talk about a certain brand… for instance, some brands evoke excitement while other evoke sympathy.
You should also keep in mind the difference on cultures and nationalities because a single thing can be perceived differently in one country and in a completely different manner in the other country.
Furthermore, to explain the emotional factor in a bit detail, let’s move on to the four primary colors and see what emotions are exhibited by these colors.
1. Red — Boldness & Youthfulness
The color red exhibits emotions like boldness, youthfulness and passion. You will surely notice that a lot of vibrant and lively brands use this color to represent their brand image and develop perception.
Brands like Coca Cola, Lays and Netflix use the Red color.
2. Yellow — Clarity & Warmth
Yellow color is used for showing clarity and contentment. It is a color which also exhibits happiness and warmth in a brand. You will now notice many brands that use yellow such as Shell, Nikon, IMDb and McDonald.
In fact Red and Yellow are the most used colors among food chain branding as they help arousing excitement and happiness among the consumers.
3. Blue — Trust and Strength
Blue on the other hand is a calm color. It represents a sense of trust. All the brands which needs a sense security use the color blue, namely; Dell, HP, IBM.
In fact all top notch social media platforms also use blue color such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
As a matter of fact, blue is mostly used in overall branding and marketing. You will see many brands having blue logos most of the times.
Have a look at this Very Useful Infographic about the Psychology of Color Blue.
4. Green — Health & Harmony
Green represents freshness, healthiness and harmony. The brands which call themselves very healthy and environment friendly will always use the color green.
If we recall these brands, we will notice that brands like Starbucks, Animal Planet and Million trees NYC use shades of green.
So…
Apart from these primary colors that are highly used by common brands, many other colors and shades of particular colors are used in marketing.
Those colors represent a whole new set of emotions that are triggered after looking at them.
Here’s a very famous Color Guide which tells us about the emotions which commonly used color represent and also tells you about the brands which are using them:
Colors and Ecommerce:
Now, when we talk about the Web World… we see a new meaning given to colors. A new set of rules and stats would be shown to you as per the choice of colors they make.
The colors for landing pages, sign up forms and call-to action buttons are considered to be highly important when designing the websites or social media platforms.
To elaborate further, let’s examine the CTA buttons for various sites. Studies reveal that websites experience an increase in conversions when they use Red CTA button. As it grabs higher attention by the visitors.
Similarly, you will also experience different colors in the Landing Pages. The landing pages are also designed as per the brand personality of the websites.
Here is how a Skin Care Ecommerce store ‘Simple’ used green color for its landing page. This color represented health and environment friendliness along with a touch of freshness.
Check out this great post on What Role Colors play in Designing the Landing Pages.
To sum it up:
Colors have a wide variety of choice and you will come across many different colors and their shades when finalizing one for your brand or for your website.
Just make sure that you compliment your brand personality with the help of your color selection and you also grab the highest attention by the users.
One thing that you have to take care about is that…
The internet is full of choices and you have to make sure that you stand out among those various choices. And that can only be done if you use your brains wisely and select a great color combination.
I’m sure this post will help you a lot in making the Right Choice!
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