Many factors affect the identity of a brand or a company, like a logo, motive, vision, product and quality. One of these factors also includes the color scheme.
The color scheme of a brand holds a psychological effect on the minds of the audience. Lets discuss about the psychology of colors and why it is crucial for your brand.
What is color psychology?
Color psychology may be defined as the study of colors and their psychological effect on human behavior. Have you ever wondered how specific colors may make you feel happy, sad, angry, or any type of feeling in the rolodex of emotions?
Well, the answer is quite complex. But psychology is true. You buy shoes or dresses of a particular color because they make you feel a specific way.
As it is apparent that colors do hold a psychological impact on human behavior. Many of the marketing geniuses have started to use them in marketing of their products. Companies and brands use this psychology to attract people to prioritize their product or service.
How is color psychology critical in marketing?
If a marketers know color psychology and its effects, they will easily attract the audience towards its brands. By choosing the perfect colors for your products, the audience will automatically get hooked and recognize you from a pool of brands.
According to a study by Seoul International Colour Expo, 93% of people focus on the visual image of the product before buying it.
And it does seem true as we buy things that appeal to our sense of sight. Especially those cute little things you see on Miniso which in reality you don’t actually need. Even when we don’t need such stuff, we still buy it because of how its color scheme makes us feel.
The way you choose the color scheme for your marketing affects how the audience perceives your product or brand.
How to choose the suitable color scheme:
But one must know how to choose the right colors as well. The colors scheme should be based on the critical element that the brand or company provides.
To choose the right color, you should first ask yourself about how this scheme stands out in my industry? Look at the Google logo; it has many primary and only one secondary color indicating its vision to innovate new ways or methods of data accessing and sharing, showing its non-conventional nature.
You can also take Mcdonald’s as an example. They have recently changed their color scheme from red and golden to green and red—the “green” indicates their effort to promote healthiness.
Some colors and their effect on psychology:
Red Color
Red represents a bold, energetic, fearless, aggressive, and active nature. That’s why we see red color on sales and deals – energizing the customers to instantly buy stuff.
Red also builds an appetite. However, if we use a specific character or phrase with the red color like happiness or fearless, we may feel extreme joy or fearlessness accordingly.
Some of the brand examples which use red color association are Youtube, fast food restaurants, Levi’s, Netflix, Coca Cola and Red Bull.
Blue Color
The blue color is mainly associated with the sky and ocean. However, it may also evoke emotions such as calmness, trust, or sadness.
The blue color is used by sites like Facebook, Twitter and Skype to show that in these sites, you can connect with your loved ones or people like yourself as you can use these platforms to talk to them, trust them and tell them all your worries.
Another facet of the blue color is its magnitude to be credible. That is why most big companies geared towards to blue branding. This is evident in brands such as Visa, Hewlett Packard, Paypal, P&G and Unilver.
Yellow Color
The yellow color is usually associated with sunshine. It depicts feelings of happiness and positivity.
Brands like Ikea, Lipton and Lays use the yellow color to give a positive vibe. It subconsciously depicts that their brand can make consumers generally happy.
Wrap Up
These were the primary colors that most famous brands use to attract the attention of the customers. Thus, their fame represents their importance in marketing. You can pick countless tones in the color spectrum. What is important is you know what the color conveys and how it will resonate your brand persona. While these colors are the norm for Color Psychology, we advice you to be a wild card.
Sometimes being different is good – that being different will help your brand to stand out. You can use pink for a masculine sports brand or black for an electrical company. Nowadays, it is good to experiment on the fact that consumers are always looking for something new. Be that new innovation and show the world what your brand is made of.
Just always remember that these are just pointers to consider and it is always you who will decide for your brand.
Do you want to learn more?
You can download the XS Multimedia Ebook ‘Branding is Fuckin’ Simple’ here
