Branding Myths - Color Psychology
Branding Myths - Color Psychology
Colors don't have universal meaning, and prioritizing color meaning in brand design is worthless.
For anyone new here, I’m the founder of Woo Punch, a brand consultancy rooted in evidence-based brand design. I write about the evidence that debunks brand purpose, differentiation, brand love, loyalty marketing, customer personas, color psychology, mission statements, customer engagement, AdTech, and “hustle culture.”
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THE MYTH OF COLOR PSYCHOLOGY
Every color has a universal meaning, buyers are influenced by color meaning, and buyers will be turned off or confused if you choose an incongruent color with your brand’s personality.
When you put too much weight on color psychology, you ignore the most effective design principle for brand growth. Distinctiveness.1
If there was a “perfect” color for subconsciously convincing your customers to buy your brand, then the most successful brands in your category would be the same color. So, why are the largest brands in each category usually exact opposite colors? I.e., Coke & Pepsi, Dunkin Donuts & Starbucks, Pampers & Huggies, Chase & Wells Fargo, Target & Walmart, etc.
I once designed a brand with a blue and yellow color scheme. I was then advised by a fellow brand strategist that yellow wouldn’t work because it evoked hunger, and the brand I created wasn’t in the food business... If that were true, how would they explain the success of IKEA, Visa, Goodyear, Hertz, Nikon, Sprint, Shell, & Best Buy?
Research into the effectiveness of color on marketing efforts is still in the infantile stage.2 Only two statements are backed by evidence when leveraging color for brand growth.3
Ideally, your brand’s colors are appropriate for your brand’s product category.3
Ideally, your brand’s colors are distinctive from your competitor’s colors.3
There is no empirical evidence, at this time, to suggest that color meaning has any effect on brand growth.
DITCH COLOR PSYCHOLOGY. DO THIS INSTEAD.
When choosing colors for your brand, ask these 3 questions:
What colors are appropriate for your brand’s product category?
What colors are appropriate for your brand’s product sub-category?
What colors trigger your competitors’ brands?
Any colors appropriate for your category and sub-category that don’t trigger your competitor’s brands are fair game, regardless of color meaning.
EXHIBIT A
Check out this popular meme shown below that attempts to box in the following brands into some arbitrary color meaning. Which brands below do you think are inconsistent with the attribute this chart is trying to associate them with?
I count 37 apparent inconsistencies (shown below) and another 35 that aren’t as obvious. That’s over half of the brands listed.
Note the following inconsistencies.
Balance - Cartoon Network, Nike, & Puma
Peaceful -John Deere, Land Rover, Android, Spotify, & Monster (Monster is Peaceful? REALLY???)
Trust - Flickr, Twitter, Oreo, Facebook, Walmart, & Vimeo
Creative - T Mobile, Welch’s, & Cadbury Excitement - Kellogg’s, Kmart, Texaco, Exxon, Ace, & Wells Fargo
Friendly -VLC, Starz, Harley Davidson, & Gulf
Optimism - UPS, IMDB, CAT, Penzoil, Shell, & Schweppes
Diversity - None of these brands are associated with diversity and weren’t when they were designed.
WHY IS THIS A THING? CONFIRMATION BIAS.
This can easily be explained by confirmation bias, which is the bias to focus on information that confirms your suspicions and ignore any information that doesn’t.
Even if the brands in the previous chart fit neatly into this chart’s attribute categories, all that might tell us is that those brands’ designers might have believed the same color myths.
There is certainly no evidence that proves these brands were successful because they chose colors associated with that color’s perceived universal meaning.
REFERENCES
[1] Evidence Concerning the Importance of Perceived Brand Differentiation - Romanuik, Jenni, Byron Sharp, and Andrew Ehrenberg (2007)
[2] Color and Psychological Functioning: A Review of Theoretical and Empirical Work - Andrew J. Elliot 2015
[3] The Interactive Effects of Colors and Products on Perceptions of Brand Logo Appropriateness. -Paul A. Bottomley & John R. Doyle 2006