Have you ever contemplated why a brand uses certain colours throughout their branding? It’s actually much more than looking good and standing out, as there is a real psychology behind the use of colours.
Colours can play a massive part when it comes to persuading and influencing customers to make purchasing decisions, so it’s essential that any brand makes the right choice.
The English playwright Joseph Addison said it best when he observed that colour speaks all languages, and it’s most certainly true. Each colour has its own tone, voice and personality and in marketing, this is the voice that you want to combine with that of your business.
The creative and PR consultancy Peppermint Soda has just launched an interactive game on its website which looks into the very vibrant world of colour psychology and even lets you pinpoint what colour best describes your business. You can give it a go here.
Our responses can be emotionally and mentally triggered when we respond to colour. However, how one person responds to a certain colour is not necessarily going to be the same for another person. This can be tricky when deciding on your branding and marketing colours. However, there are some great guidelines we can follow to determine how the majority of people will respond - for example, red could be seen as attention-grabbing, confident and sometimes angry.
There are a few ways to go about choosing the right colour for you. In fact, the quiz asks three questions with a multitude of possible responses. Pairing up all your answers will give you the colour for your brand.
Which dimension of brand personality best fits your business?
How do you want your business to come across? This is how the consumers will see you, and get a feel for what your style and traits are. This is also how your marketing will be targeted. You might want to be seen as an honest and sincere brand, or you may wish to be regarded as exciting and daring.What kind of feelings and emotions should your brand evoke?
In marketing, you always want people to emotionally connect with your brand – but how? This will depend on the type of business that you are responsible for and what it does. If your brand cares about the environment, then you may like to be seen as responsible and caring. If you're marketing a bank, you’ll probably like to be seen as trusting. It’s all about getting the right message across.What should your customers be associating your brand with?
To finish it all off, you need to find the strong association that your customers will have with your brand. If you’re the same environmentally friendly company that wanted to be seen as responsible, then perhaps you’d want your customers to see you as being associated with renewal or respectability. You need to be consistent with your marketing throughout.
Once you understand the dimensions, feelings and associations for your business, you will be much more aware of the direction in which your marketing and branding needs to go. The messages that you convey through your business can be correlated with a colour that shares the same characteristics and meanings.
Subconsciously, people will make these associations without even being aware – sometimes, purely because of the colours used in your branding. This can make a big difference in whether people use your services or not.
Author Bio
Ben Martin is creative director at the PR and creative agency Peppermint Soda.
