Colors are all around us. They are used in our everyday lives to alert us against danger, to give us signals and directions, to lead us in recognizing certain product characteristics and more

Color can be, indeed, seen as an integral part of corporate communication. Several studies and researches have recognized that colors can induce moods and emotions, influence consumer perception and purchasing attitudes and help companies position and differentiate with respect to their competitors.

But how can psychology and market researches findings be coherently understood and used to enhance brand image and awareness with a target audience in mind?

In this article, experts from Labbrand further explore color strategies to express brands Visual Identity.

At Labbrand we understand color choice strategies to act on two dimensions:

1. Colors are selected to convey emotions and to influence consumers brand preferences

2. Colors are strategically selected to convey industry category, brand position and distinctiveness within the industry

To understand where color theories come from we have to go back as early as the beginning of the 17th century with Galileo. The famous scientist initiated the debate on the real meaning of colors and their influence on people’s minds by arguing that colors were not a real property of objects but rather something that resided in the viewers’ minds.

During the following centuries other famous minds have looked at colors and their nature: Newton 1, Goethe 2 and Chevreul 3 are arguably the most important names to cite here for the Western world.
However, it has been only recently that researches have started to approach the issue of colors’ effect on human behavior, firstly to understand psychological implications and subsequently to analyze how these effects could be used for marketing purposes 4.

Color strategies to convey emotions and influence consumers brand preferences:

Starting from the beginning of last century till today, the main question researches have tried to address seems to have been: are there any cross cultural differences in the perception of colors? And if so, how deep do these differences go into viewers minds? The relevancy of this question for branding purpose is enormous: only by understanding the depth of this difference can brands actively use colors by conveying emotions.

By looking at relevant researches conducted in cross cultural context and in different time frames Labbrand has observed that:

There are cross cultural differences in the perception of colors that are of learned origins.

Research seems to agree with the fact that, when asked, people from different cultural backgrounds will consciously associate colors with comparatively different values. Thus, respondents from USA will see blue as a corporate color associated with masculinity, high quality and trustworthiness whereas respondents form East Asian countries will associate it with coldness and evil.

Relatively different cultures seem to share similar core subconscious associations to colors.

Apparently, relatively different cultures recognize white as the symbol for purity and cleanliness, even with the due different associations to marriage or death between the west and the east. Black seems to be associated among several cultures with luxury and authority even given the due distinctive conscious associations with mourning and grief in the west. Red, by contrast, seems to be the only one color to be perceived by every culture similarly. It conveys everywhere love, passion, fire and energy and is associated with life itself. From this common root, however, different connotations have been assigned to red: luck in China, life in Shinto’s Japan, sin for Hebrews just to give a few examples.

The following table shows some of the most commonly shared color related associations:

As the world globalizes differences tend to become less extreme while ideas and customs more universal. For instance, even though white is the color for mourning in Thailand, Thai people nowadays often wear black when attending funerals. In China, even if red is the traditional color used for marriage, it is easy to see brides wearing white dresses when getting married. It is expected that with the growing global exchange of information, visual messages and ideas, associations to colors will also be increasingly shared among different cultures.

The importance of these finding for our purpose is evident: in order to convey emotions and exploit conscious and unconscious associations to colors, global brands need to carefully select the colors embedding their global image and to distinctively use culture sensitive colors for tailored brand messages. Targeted research can help in this sense: focus groups, conjoint analysis, structural equation modeling, word associations, semantic scales, projective techniques, eye tracking…these can all help to understand the universal or culture specific color preference to convey brand identity and value.

Colors are strategically selected to convey industry category, brand position and distinctiveness within the industry

Nowadays we know that brands need to be different from competitors to obtain a unique place in consumers mind.

Marketers and designers all observe that brands use colors to stress their unique characteristics and personality as well as to impact on consumers’ perceptions and behaviors.
However, we can also recognize some general criteria for color choosing strategy among brands in the same industry. For instance, many energy brands primarily use red, while telecom brands prefer to use more blue.

Are there any industry specific parallels in choosing a brand color? In order to answer this question explicitly, we choose five industries – telecom, airlines, energy, pharmacy and bank- from the Top 500 brands of 2007 which was released by Fortune magazine from the July 23, 2007 issue. The statistical result is illustrated in the following chart:

In this chart, the horizontal axis denotes the industry, and the vertical axis denotes the percentage of color choice in the specific industry. Upon further analysis we discovered interesting conclusions:

1. Among the five different industries, brands choose similar colors. Relatively, white, blue, and red are more preferred compared with orange, yellow, and green. In most cultures, white signifies purity. Its popularity can be explained because it conveys simplicity, cleanliness and goodness which may very well suit the purpose of brands in different industries. Here are a few example:, organic foods, skin care products, pharmaceutical items can all take advantage of the associations conveyed by the color white. Blue relates in many cultures with authority, quality and trustworthiness while red arouses associations with energy and passion. Therefore, by using these two colors, brands may provoke associations between their image and these values.
2. Beyond the similarity mentioned above, different industries still show quite distinguishable color preferences. From the chart we find that relatively, energy brands use more red, pharmaceutical brands prefer orange, and airlines choose to use more black into their logo. Labbrand associates different preferences with different industry characteristics. The energy industry is associated with power, which coincides well with the metaphor of red (passion, warmth and liveliness). By using the brightness of orange pharmacies connote a more positive image. Pharmacies strive to make people well, to give hope to sick customers. The evocation the color orange arises well conveying joy and hope, and is therefore used quite often in pharmaceutical logos. By contrast, pharmaceutical brands have been found not to use black, as black may remind people of death, which is the very thing the pharmacy industry fights against.

Using colors coherently to the industry nature while differentiating and conveying the brand personality is a delicate balancing act.

For example, energy brand BP shows its value proposition of “Beyond Petroleum”, by avoiding the classical industrial color preference, red. Instead, its VI is composed of green, yellow and white which help make BP distinctively different among other energy brands.

Within industries, brands try to differentiate themselves even more by focusing on their distinctive brand values.

Some brands put emphasis on their heritage. Using this brand attribute the color choice of VI is often based on the nation’s featured colors. For instance, Bank of America adopts red, white, and blue in its logo, which are the colors of the American flag.

Looking at the development of logos and the color changes they undergo illustrates how closely related the logo colors and brands identity are. In the year 2007, Fiat changed the main color of its logo from blue to red. China CEO released the statement: “the new logo is one part of the company’s new brand strategy, and from now on, the company will face up with the future bravely. There will be no failure, and there will be something new”. From blue to red, the value associated to Fiat changed drastically: the new brand identity is more dynamic, youthful, and individualistic. Bravo, the first product brand Fiat developed using the new logo, did very well in sales. The success of this product, which positions itself with young, energetic white collar workers, proved the success of the brand’s visual identity rebuilding.

Who would have thought that the colors employed in brand logos have such strong psychological impact on consumers and such deep roots in psychological and marketing researches? This study brings about a deeper understanding of the rationale behind the choice of colors for corporate and brand logos. It helps us obtaining the rules of color choices beyond the seemingly large differences. From the dimension of industry character, we know why brands in the same industry choose similar colors. While from the aspect of brand identity, we know that brands in the same industry have different color preferences. Painting brands with colors means communicating directly to consumers minds and conveying without words the brand values and identity.

This is why a clever color choice for brand VI is vital for establishing an emotional connection with consumers.

1. Newton Isaac, (1704) “Optics: or a treatise of the reflections, refractions, inflections and colors of light”

2. Goethe, Wolfgang von, (1810), “Theory of Colors”

3. Chevreul, Michel-Eugene, (1839) “The Law of Simultaneous Color Contrast”

4. Among others Madden T.J., Hewitt K., Roth M.S., (2000) “Managing Images in different cultures: a cross-national study of color meanings and preferences”