A colour signifies what your brand encloses

Do you give importance to the colour associated with your brand? Do you think seriously about the colour of the packaging of your product before designing? If not, then it’s time to re-think as for consumers different colours symbolise different traits.

Colour influences consumers’ purchase decisions, the way they see things and even their emotions. Therefore it is integral to marketing. As a marketing tool, a colour can also be a subliminally persuasive force. A colour captures attention by irritating or relaxing the eyes; it even affects the legibility of a text.

“The colour to be used depends on the product. A company like Cadbury uses purple colour for packaging its premier product, DairyMilk chocolate because purple is very striking to eyes- brighter the colour, more appealing it is to eyes but there has to be a balance” says Tarun Garg, Managing Director, KonsultingIT. He further adds, “We took some time in deciding the logo of our organisation as we wanted it to be with the right colour and shade. Now that we have developed an attractive one, we use this on our website and all our emails so that our logo and brand turns to be a recognised and established one.”

The following will give you an understanding of the characteristic features associated with each colour. This would help you to zero-in on a colour that best describes your brand’s qualities.

Red:

Red is associated with heat, excitement, danger, passion, blood, war, energy, talent, violence, and courage. Red is used to stimulate people to make quick decisions.

Brands in Red: Coca Cola, Adobe, Airtel, women make up (like lipstick, nail-paint, etc) companies, Santa Clause

Yellow:

Yellow shows novelty, warmth, amiability, sympathy, playfulness but temporarily.

Brands in Yellow: Maggi, McDonalds, etc.

Silver & Gold:

Silver and gold are associated with wealth and regality. It is used to colour products to which premium price is to be attached like a premium cards, vintage cars, high-tech electronic gadgets, premium and sophisticated watches, credit cards, visa cards etc.

Brown:

Brown is associated with earthiness, natural masculine, relaxed and suave personality. Used in men’s product like shoes, portfolio bags to show elegance, and chocolates.

Brands in Brown: Nescafe, UPS.

Green:

Green signifies something which is very environment friendly, cool, lively and natural.

Brands in green:  Sprite, soaps with natural ingredients like Margo, Hamam, Medimix, and United Colours of Benetton. Apparels project green as universal symbol of earth.

Blue:

Blue (especially, Royal Blue) is associated with royalty, wealth, respect, security and authority. “We have kept our company’s logo very decent and simple in blue and gray colour so that it can reflect our organisation’s personality. We have also included a new font in our logo too, which is normally not available in MS word or elsewhere so that it reflects our unique niche IT services of Asset Management, BOT, etc” informs Tarun Garg, Managing Director, KonsultingIT.

Brands in Blue- Examples of such brands are Intel, NASA, RIM (manufacturers of the famous, Blackberry handsets), VISA, etc.

Black:

Black is associated with sophistication, power, enigmatic, authority and mystery. Black in packaging shows an image of elegance and supremacy. Used in formal dress for men and women as it accentuates sensuality in women and authoritativeness in men.

Brands in black- IBM ThinkPad uses black case with a red button to house its very success ful line of laptops, Apple logo in grayish-black colour signifies elegance and sophistication and same is with Microsoft.

White:

White is associated with purity, innocence, virginity, delicacy, refinement, graceful, finesse. Brands in white- Ambassador, Toiletries, Beauty Soaps, White-goods, brands focusing on women segment like Camay, Dove, etc.,

So, put your thinking cap on and take time to decide on the impression that you want to create for your brand by choosing a specific colour because colour says it all!