he colours you select for your brand go beyond aesthetics; they communicate subtle messages about your business. By tapping into the psychology of colour, your brand can evoke specific emotions, building trust and rapport with your audience. Iconic brands worldwide showcase this principle, with their logo colours embodying their brand essence, even without accompanying text.
This highlights the potency of colours in enhancing brand recognition and eliciting desired reactions. Research reveals that a product's colour influences 60 to 80% of a customer's buying decision. Hence, selecting the appropriate colour not only bolsters brand recall but can also impact overall sales figures.
As a marketer, delving into the psychology of colours can help convey the intended message to your target audience effectively. Integrating your brand's colours consistently across your website, landing pages, logo, products, and other materials enhances brand cohesion. This unified branding amplifies the influence of colours and positively impacts your business.
Let's delve deeper into each colour and explore how marketers can leverage them to forge connections with their audience.
Analysing the world’s top 100 brands
We aimed to scrutinise the world’s top 100 brands, distinguished by their brand value, to discern the prevalent use of colours.
Here's what we uncovered:
Blue emerges as the predominant colour, appearing in 33% of the top 100 brands. Red follows closely, featuring in 29% of the brands, while black or greyscale ranks as the third most popular choice, encompassing 28%. Yellow or gold is utilised by 13% of the brands.
What's intriguing is that 95% of the top 100 brands opt for just one or two colours. This inclination towards simplicity is likely an endeavour to maintain consistency in their branding.
Furthermore, many of these brands do not rely heavily on text, with only 41% incorporating it into their logos.
This underscores the power of a strong logo to forge a connection with the audience, even in the absence of accompanying text. Remarkably, 9% of the brands omitted their company name entirely from their logos, further emphasising the simplicity of their design.
How do people respond to brand colors?
Human responses to colours vary widely, with each colour evoking distinct emotions and associations. Colours can generally be categorised into two main groups: warm and cool. Warm colours often convey energy and vibrancy, whereas cool colours evoke feelings of calmness and security.
But how does each colour influence us, and what implications does this hold for your brand? Let's delve into the characteristics of different colours and how your brand can strategically select a combination of them to evoke the desired response.
Red
Red triggers passionate and visceral responses. It quickens heart rates and breath, commonly associated with energy, excitement, and passion. As one of the most attention-grabbing colours, it can also evoke provocation and excitement.
Colour code: aggressive, energetic, provocative, attention-grabbing, passionate
Purple
Purple embodies sophistication and mystery, commonly linked with luxury and refinement, rendering it perfect for premium products. Its enigmatic charm is also associated with spirituality, infusing a hint of magic into your brand persona.
Colour code: royalty, sophistication, nostalgia, mystery, spirituality
Blue
Blue is the top choice among many leading brands. Its association with the sky and the ocean often evokes a calming effect on individuals. Additionally, blue symbolizes trust, security, and confidence, making it an excellent option for brands seeking to communicate these qualities effectively.
Colour code: trustworthy, dependable, secure, responsible, confident
Green
Green embodies calmness, safety, and freshness. Its diverse shades offer opportunities to craft a distinct brand identity for your company. Often associated with health, green evokes feelings of peace and serenity, making it a compelling choice for brands aiming to convey these attributes.
Colour code: Wealth, health, prestige, serenity, generosity, safety
Yellow
Yellow is a favoured colour among brands seeking to instil a sense of positivity in their identity. Its connection with the sun, across its various hues, evokes feelings of hope and optimism. Yellow's vibrant presence also ensures that a brand adopting it stands out, lending a creative and appealing edge to its identity.
Colour code: positivity, light, warmth, motivation, creativity, happiness
Orange
Orange is a perfect colour option for brands seeking to merge the optimism and vibrancy of yellow with the passion and energy of red. It radiates creativity and cheerfulness, evoking a sense of friendliness and adventure.
Colour code: vitality, fun, playful, exuberant, outgoing
Brown
Brown embodies earthly simplicity and is often chosen to convey stability and strength. Its comforting simplicity appeals to brands aiming for a classical and trustworthy image, avoiding bold statements. However, as brown is associated with the earth and can evoke thoughts of dirt, its use requires careful consideration, particularly if it serves as the primary colour for a brand.
Color code: earth-like, natural, simplistic, durable, comforting
Black
Black remains a popular choice among brands, renowned for its timeless appeal and sophistication. Its classic and refined nature allows brand identities to command attention. Particularly suited for luxury products, black seamlessly blends classic and powerful elements. Additionally, black can be paired with other colours to evoke stronger emotions while retaining its classical allure.
Colour code: Prestige, value, timelessness, sophistication, power
White
White symbolises simplicity, purity, and cleanliness, making it highly favoured in sectors such as healthcare, cleaning services, and child-related industries. Its association with purity and simplicity fosters a sense of trust, making it an ideal choice for businesses aiming to convey reliability and cleanliness.
Colour code: pure, noble, clean, soft
Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.
Understanding the psychology behind each colour is valuable when crafting your brand's identity. Your colour selection can shape your brand's visual appeal and resonate with your target audience. Choose colours that accentuate your brand's strengths and evoke the desired emotions in your audience.
Do the colours you've chosen for your brand align with the emotions you aim to evoke in your customers and prospects?
