Color – How It Helps or Hurts Your Brand Perception

Color – How It Helps or Hurts Your Brand Perception

You can spend days and months contemplating your brand promise, your mission statement, your company’s culture, and what you stand for. But, none of that will be recognizable or memorable to your clients if you don’t consider the visuals that accompany your brand.

Some logos and fonts become so ingrained in people’s psyches that they don’t even need to accompany a brand name. Consider Nike’s swoosh symbol or the golden M of the McDonald’s arch and the feeling and ideas they convey. This is the work of:

• Careful planning,
• A deep understanding of branding, and
• A deep understanding of the impact of color psychology.

First impressions matter and customers pay attention to the visual appearance of everything from your logo to your website, fliers, and in-store branding. Different colors have a different psychological effect and what works for one brand might not necessarily work for another. Here are a few interesting facts about the emotions that certain colors convey:

• Purple

Purple arouses the feeling of opulence, royalty, and intelligence. If you think about the robes and dresses worn by kings and queens many years ago, purple often comes to mind. Purple has also been said to stimulate solution finding and creativity. One brand that has used the color purple effectively in their branding is Hallmark. The company’s corporate colors are white and purple, and the logo has a tiara on top. Hallmark did this to convey the feeling of luxury and also to instil a sense of nostalgia in their customers – and it works!

• Black

It’s not often that you see brands choosing black as their primary corporate colour. Black is associated with elegance and authority. One brand that has successfully used black as their corporate color is Adidas. Consider how bold and traditional the Adidas logo is (and how it compels you to take charge and get active).

• What About Gender and Culture?

The above mentioned are only two examples of the feelings and ideas that colours can convey, but obviously, this will depend on a person’s history, their own internal biases, their personal preferences, and even their gender. Researcher Joe Hallock showcased the preferences in certain colours across gender in his renowned study called Color Assignments. In his research, he showed that men’s favourite colours were blue, followed by green, black, red, and orange. He also showed that men’s least favourite colours were brown, followed by purple, orange, yellow, and grey. Women, on the other hand, prefer blue, followed by purple, green, and red; their least favourite colours are orange, followed by grey, yellow, and brown.

These are only some of the ways that colour can hurt or help your brand perception. Get in touch with WSI New Media Marketing in Greensboro, North Carolina, for an in-depth look at what you should consider when choosing your brand colours.