How can color help you effectively market your product or service? The psychology of color is not a new concept, take a look in your refrigerator and you will see products by companies that have spent millions of dollars and man hours trying to establish the right color combination to get you to buy. So when you were choosing the colors for your company logo you probably thought a little about how color makes people feel, but do you extend that into your marketing campaigns?

If you look at multimillion dollar marketing campaigns you will see that though the company logo may keep the same color and/or branding, components under that brand does not. How individual products are packaged and marketed is established by the sought after emotional response from the targeted consumer.

The best places to see color in action is in your supermarkets and department stores, look at the different colors that are being used for healthy, energizing, relaxing, and decadent products. Next look at the colors that are being associated with specialty, unique, and expensive items versus the colors used for smart, economical, and discounted products.

Once you have a feel for the color palettes that are being used to express a certain message and elicit a desired response or action, look at your marketing material what is it saying? Is your message clear, are the colors you are using varied for the time of year, the audience, the message, and ultimately the sought after response?

In the article The Psychology of Color in Marketing, June Campbell outlines some North American color attitudes and associations to get you started.

The effects of color differ among different cultures, so the attitudes and preferences of your target audience should be a consideration when you plan your design of any promotional materials.

For example, white is the color of death in Chinese culture [while in North America it represents purity and new beginnings]. Yellow is sacred to the Chinese, [represents warmth and happiness in the US], but signifies sadness in Greece and jealousy in France. People from tropical countries respond most favorably to warm colors; people from northern climates prefer the cooler colors.

In North American mainstream culture, the following colors are associated with certain qualities or emotions:

Red –excitement, strength, sex, passion, speed, danger.

Blue –(listed as the most popular color) trust, reliability, belonging, coolness.

Yellow –warmth, sunshine, cheer, happiness

Orange — playfulness, warmth, vibrant

Green — nature, fresh, cool, growth, abundance

Purple –royal, spirituality, dignity

Pink — soft, sweet, nurture, security

White –pure, virginal, clean, youthful, mild.

Black –sophistication, elegant, seductive, mystery

Gold — prestige, expensive

Silver — prestige, cold, scientific

The key factor that Angela Wright, in her book The Beginners Guide To Colour Psychology, recognized in studying color psychology was that, equally, there are no wrong colors; It is the combination of colors that triggers the response; you could have a grey sky on a summer day, but our reaction to that grey with the beautiful colors of the summer landscape would be different from the combination of a grey sky with a predominantly snow white scene. We do not respond to just one color, but to colors in combination. Even the winter landscape contains many colors.

When you are planning your next marketing campaign remember you only get 7 seconds to get someone’s attention – what are your colors saying in that 7 seconds?