Color Meanings Around the World
September 23, 2007 by Susan Gunelius
Filed under Marketing
Colors are an integral part of a brand strategy. The color palette chosen to represent your brand can subconsciously communicate a variety of messages, and it’s been proven through market research that color directly impacts consumers.
With that in mind, I’ve been looking for a good source to provide some insight into the psychology of color internationally. For example, a color could convey happiness in the United States but mourning in another country. If yours is an international brand, its essential that you consider color meanings throughout the world before you choose the color palette to be used in your logo, marketing materials, etc.
To illustrate my point, following is a list of colors and their cultural meanings in different countries throughout the world adapted from Foundations of Marketing by Jonathan Groucutt:
Red
- Good luck and fortune: China and parts of Africa
- Danger, warning/alert: Europe, America and Australia/New Zealand
- Masculinity: Parts of Europe
- Mourning (dark red): Ivory Coast
- Death: Turkey
Blue
- Immortality: Iran
Purple
- Mourning: Brazil
- Symbol of expense: Asian cultures
- Organic foods, freshness, environmentally friendly, good health: Many Western nations
Green
- High-tech: Japan
- Luck: Middle East
- A forbidden color: Indonesia
- Death: South America and countries with dense jungle areas
Yellow
- Feminine: United States and many countries
- Mourning: Mexico
- Strength and reliability: Saudi Arabia
Pink
- Feminine: United States
Black
- Mourning as well as style and elegance: Most Western nations
- Trust and high quality: China
White
- Mourning: Japan and other Far Eastern nations
- Cleanliness and purity: Western nations
Brown
- Disapproval: Nicaragua
Of course, this list is not all-inclusive, but it provides some good examples of how colors can have different meanings in different parts of the world. For example, if your business operates in Indonesia, you’ll probably want to avoid using the color green to represent your brand since it’s a forbidden color in that country. On the other hand, green is considered to be a lucky color in many other parts of the world.
Whatever colors you ultimately choose to represent your brand, make sure they accurately convey the message and image of your brand everywhere your company does business.
Brown and green are my favorite colors so I suppose I won’t be moving to Nicaragua or Indonesia any time soon and starting a color based business.
This was interesting though. I try to include references to other places on some blogs but it’s hard because I am in America and I see things from that POV. It makes me feel for people who need to look good all over the world — that must be tough.
That said, I didn’t see burnt orange 70s tupperware color on here. Thank goodness one color I like is safe! Although now people will question my color sensibility.