7 Ways Research Shows How Color Affects Your Brand
August 3, 2007 by Susan Gunelius
Filed under Marketing
I was exchanging emails with Gabriel Goldenberg from SEOROI.com when he brought up the topic of color branding. I love this subject. There are so many ways that color can have a positive or negative impact on your brand and much of it has been identified and validated through research.
Branding Strategy Insider published a great post earlier this year that provided some key facts from color research that apply directly to marketing and branding. Some of the highlights of the research cited in that post include:
- Color increases brand recognition by up to 80%.
- Ads in color are read up to 42% more often than the same ads in black and white.
- Color can improve readership by 40%.
- Color can improve learning from 55% to 78%.
- Color can improve comprehension by 73%.
- 73% of purchasing decisions are made in-store. Therefore, catching the shopper’s eye and conveying information through the effective use of color is essential to boosting sales.
- Tests indicate that a black and white image may sustain interest for less than two-thirds a second, whereas a color image may hold a person’s attention for two seconds or more. Since a product has just one-twentieth of a second to catch the customer’s attention on a shelf or display, the 1+ seconds color adds could have a significant impact on awareness and sales.
Look for future color branding posts here at Brandcurve. In the meantime, are you making the best use of color in your branding and marketing efforts?
Yes, color affects so much of how we feel and what we do. I found this very interesting and informative…color and branding. There was a book I read long ago (can’t recall the name right off) about color and advertising. I was doing advertising and showroom display for a business and found that book helpful.
Well, now I know why I’m not a marketing genius. I like weird colors. Think 70s Tupperware, brown, olive, shag carpet orange — colors that remind me of stuff I like. But maybe not popular with others. The channel editor at my new b5 blog that’s launching soon, wanted me to pick the colors for the template — which was nice but so agonizing. I was so worried I’d pick wrong. Actually though, I love how it turned out (everyone will hate it then) at least I didn’t pick shag carpet orange :)
Also, it’s strange because reading this post I kept thinking about how my favorite art pieces are black and white not color. But I do notice colorful ads more than plain ads. I think artistic branding (with color in mind) may be very different than commercial color branding. I have more of an art background though than a business background and I could be wrong. I think if I was in the public eye for some reason (egad) I’d have to pay someone to make me fit in color wise. This was an interesting post — it’ll be cool to see more color topics.
And I do not remember the tea commercials. I sure hope people weren’t diving into tea (that’s how you made it sound). That’s sticky business.
It’s so true that color impacts so many different aspects of our lives both consciously and sub-consciously, and it’s interesting how those effects differ from marketing/branding to art to interior design, etc. There are companies that focus 100% on color consulting for other businesses. You wouldn’t think there would be enough work to keep those companies in business, but there color has so much impact that these companies are actually thriving!
Looks like another winner you wrote here Susan! Thanks for the link btw (looks like you earned one yourself, from the trackback I see above). I didn’t know that colour can retain your attention longer, or that stuff about retailing, but it’s good to know. Why don’t you try writing a case study with some e-retailers? They can try your colour ideas and see if it boosts their bottom line, you can develop your expertise further and get content (perhaps even get paid), and best of all, it would probably make a great case study for marketing sherpa, which would gain you huge recognition, traffic and some more regular readers!
Thanks for the great ideas. I am thinking about taking my interest in color branding further, so your ideas inspire me!
Very interesting! I’m in the process of designing a logo for my company and now I really want to figure out what colors to utilize!