The Psychology of Colour in Marketing

You probably would have heard of the impact of colours in branding as it relates to logo creation and brand items. But, do you know colours have an impact on your marketing results? Yes! And this is not just a conscious impact. On engaging with content, studies have shown that a consumer is unconsciously making the decision of where to look, what’s important and what’s not based on the colours encountered.

This concept is what is known as the psychology of colours as it relates to marketing. Designers and marketers alike have harnessed this marketing power.

The Relationship Between Colours and Your Audience

Colours mean lots of things to different people and in different cultures. It determines mood and emotional response. If my consumers are making decisions based on how colours make them feel, I would like to know how to use this to my advantage.

1. Red Colour

Red creates a sense of power and urgency, this is good and it suggests the need to click on a buy tab. It is very useful in clearance sales. It also points to physical needs: encouraging appetite, it motivates and improves general enthusiasm. It is used by fast-food chains, think MacDonald and Mr Biggs. Coca-Cola has been successful in utilizing the impact of the colour red.

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Companies like Canon, Netflix, ESPN, and Virgin America has successfully used this colour to their advantage as it reflects passion, excitement, movement. How do you feel when you view the current Airtel 4g video campaign? Hubspot.com observed in a button colours test that a red CTA(Call To Action) button outperformed green CTA button by 21%. Conversion rate increased without changing any other thing.

2. Blue Colour

Research shows that men prefer the colour blue and easily responds to this. I asked a male friend if it was true, he says he is colours blind and responds majorly to the colour blue. Mark Zuckerberg is colour blind hence the use of blue for the Facebook app says Co schedule.com. people with colour blindness usually do not have a problem seeing blue.

The colour is associated with peace, tranquillity, reliability. It brings trust, especially in marketing. Although too much use of blue reflects coldness and is attributed to being old fashion. When modestly used in creating marketing content, it provides a sense of security. It is commonly used by hospitals, fitness facilities, and spas.

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3. Green Colour

Balance and harmony. It is common to associate green with growth and life. It creates a sense of relaxation both physically and mentally, it relaxes customers in stores, its depiction of balance can lead to decisiveness which is great for conversion.

Commonly used by health brands, whole foods companies, Ecosystem conscious brands and Tech brands that are growth conscious.

4. Yellow Colour

Yellow makes me think of smiley faces????, sunshine and a lot of cheerfulness and studies shows I am not alone. People generally associate yellow with fun, happiness, and optimism. You would find it useful in children’s products.

Generally, primary colours(red, blue, yellow) are children colour and depicts positivity. It is said that infants first responds to the colour yellow, think toys, daycare centers, cartoons, etc. It can also influence fast food marketing content greatly. 

5. Orange Colour

This fun and freedom depicting colour combines the power of red and friendliness of yellow. It brings about comfort, it engages a youthful audience. What brand comes to mind, Fanta? GT bank?

While purple creates a sense of luxury, black symbolizes authority, power, stability, white is associated with a feeling of cleanliness, safety, and purity.

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Using Colour Theory Properly

I had this experience where I changed my blog home page to a red/pink combo, I felt something was wrong, it wasn’t that I didn’t like the colour, because I did. I realized that I found it difficult to read the text on the page. It was hurting my eyes! I could have stuck to it because I liked it but no one would have been able to read the information on the page(purpose of blog defeated).

It is important contrast is used to reduce eyestrain and allow readers to focus their attention on specific items. Vibrant colours dictate the emotional response user would have to visual content (pictures and videos mainly) so a bright colour works best here but to make it easy for readers to take in text dense information, a cool colour theme should be preferred.

It’s safe to say colours cannot be ignored when it comes to marketing, let us know how your colour choices have improved or adversely affected your marketing results.

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