Color Psychology - Part 2

In our last blog, we began discussing the effects of color, and specifically the effect of color on the branding of businesses and products. Many have found that the colors in which a business uses to market their brand or product, can actually make or break a business.  For consumers decide if they are going to buy a product or service within the first 90 seconds of coming into contact with a product or marketing materials. It is not about using a color or combination of colors that will make you successful, it’s about using the right color or color combination for your business. In our last blog, we mentioned the five dimensions of brand personality as related to color, and this is where we will pick up in part 2 of our blog series.

5 Dimensions of Brand Personality

As we illustrated in our last blog, colors can evoke an emotion and colors can convey a particular personality about your company, product, or service. Below, are the emotions that are evoked by several basic colors.

Meaning: Clarity and Warmth

Brands: Best Buy, Subway, Nikon, Sprint, National Geographic, IKEA

Meaning: Cheerful and Confident

Brands: Nickelodeon, Amazon, FireFox, Harley-Davidson, Crush, Starz

Meaning: Youthful and Bold

Brands: Target, Canon, Kellogg’s, Coca Cola, Lego, Lays, Avis, Heinz

Meaning: Imaginative and Wise

Brands: Yahoo, Taco Bell, Syfy, T-Mobile, Hallmark, Cadbury, Barbie

Meaning: Dependable and Wise

Brands: Dell, Lowe's, HP, Oreo, Facebook, Wordpress, Oral-B, Vimeo, NASA

Meaning: Growth and Health

Brands: John Deere, Tropicana, Monster, Whole Foods, Spotify, Starbucks, BP, Animal Planet

Meaning: Neutral and Calm

Brands: Apple, Honda, Nike, Cartoon Network, Wikipedia, Puma, CBS

Now we will compare the five dimensions of brand personality as it relates to color.

Five Dimensions of Color

Down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, original, cheerful, sentimental, friendly

Daring, trendy, exciting, spirited, imaginative, unique, up-to-date, independent, contemporary

Reliable, hard-working, secure, intelligent, technical, corporate, successful, leader, confident

Upper-class, glamorous, good-looking, charming, feminine, smooth

Outdoorsy, masculine, western, tough, rugged

If you compare the five dimensions of brand personality, with the above examples of what emotions are evoked with the same colors, you can see how these intersect to contribute to the overall perception of a brand. The combination of colors can also have a key role in your brands perception.

Color Combinations

There are various color combinations that are iconic. Whether it be for a sports team or a long-standing sports brand, there are particular color combinations, when together and in a particular design, will always remind you of a specific entity or business. In part 1, we gave an example of fast-food restaurants versus healthy fast food alternatives. Many fast food chains, i.e. McDonalds, Wendy’s, or Five Guys, use red and in many cases a yellow and red combination. For their healthy counterparts, these companies used green sometimes in combination with purple, blue, or white.

Yellow, as shown above in the case of fast food, subliminally told the client their brand is cheerful, warm, and sentimental. Additionally, through the use of yellow, they are personifying: exciting and youthful. While with the use of red: bold. Despite your opinion of fast food, through the use of these colors, these fast food chains told their potential consumers, "We are fast, efficient, a place for the entire family, and a place to make memories".

However, for the healthy fast food alternative restaurants, they were trying to communicate something entirely different. Through the use of green, they are implying they are healthy, allowing you to grow.  While using purple they can help you be good-looking.  With the use of white, they offering balance. In the art of using of these colors they were telling their customers they offer health, balance, and food which will nourish, and help consumers thrive.

Conclusion

As you can see, these companies, though in the exact same general business, used completely different colors to communicate exactly what they have to offer. Many consumers said they preferred color combinations with similar hues; however, others preferred seeing colors together which highly contrast each other. To determine what color combinations are best for your branding, you have to know what your clients are looking for and are the most attracted to. You must take into consideration the age, gender, and other demographic details of your target client base and how color affects them.

We hope that you have found this installment of our color psychology blog helpful in your pursuit for success. Stay tuned for more posts about color psychology, marketing, and more about our waterproof paper.

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