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Brands and colour psychology

How brands are using colour to bring customers in and shore up bottom-lines.

Cadbury, purple. NatWest, vibrant purple. Shell, yellow. Holiday Inn, green.

One reason why brands put so much thought behind colour is the fact that colour conveys emotion faster than words. What catches the consumer’s attention in the brands named above is – apart from name, logo or product type – is the colour. There is little doubt that colour comes first.

The power of colour can be gauged from the fact that Google tested 41 shades of blue for its advertising links before settling on the current hue. And it paid off (read story for the how and why). The mood that colours generate is a weighty consideration. One of the key drivers of beer brand Carlsberg’s strategy on the recent redesign of Carlsberg Export was the Danish concept of ‘hygge’, a balance between the warm and the cool. Carlsberg went for white (cool) and copper (warmth), moving away from the earlier green.

In order to grab the customer’s attention in the first two seconds, there can be nothing more powerful than an eye-catching colour.

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