How the right brand color palette creates better buyer experiences
Creating a strong and cohesive brand strategy is pivotal to standing out and commanding influence in a competitive marketplace. Your visual identity will determine your audience and, ultimately, how successful your brand is. Much goes into crafting a strong visual identity, but few graphic design elements make such an immediate impression as color does.
Colors are naturally attention-grabbing and influential, and learning how to use them effectively will transform your brand. 85% of buyers pick products based on color, and research shows that good brand colors raise brand recognition by 80%. It’s vital not to arbitrarily pick brand colors but rather to select colors which will generate high positive impressions. But how do you pick the right color palette for your brand to ensure high impact customer interactions and a lasting edge over your competitors?
Read ICEY’s guide to explore your brand’s identity, pick the right colors for your brand, and strategically employ your brand colors across all collateral and marketing channels to increase your brand’s success at all stages of the buyer’s journey.
Why are brand colors a big deal?
Brand colors are typically a palette of between four and ten colors strategically used in all areas of your branding, from your brand’s logo, web design, social media, print and digital ads, packaging, and more. Not only does having great brand colors increase the recognizability and influence of your brand, but they also have surprising psychological effects you may not know about. Ultimately, your brand colors cultivate an experience and affect how people perceive and feel about your brand.
Have you ever wondered why so many banks use blue in their logo? Or why so many fast food joints — from McDonald’s to Wendy’s to In-N-Out to Pizza Hut — use bright yellow and red in their branding? The answer is color psychology.
Colors work in marketing — and in all areas of life — to create emotional experiences and convey information. Since our emotions drive the choices we make, color psychology in marketing uses colors to drive positive customer interactions. While your brand’s logo can’t tell your brand’s entire story on its own, it can quickly convey your core identity to your audience and make them feel something. Which leads to the question — what do you want your audience to feel? That’s where brand identity comes in.
Craft your brand’s identity before you pick colors
Before you decide how you want to make your customers feel and what colors you’ll use to make it happen, you need to spend time considering your brand’s identity. It can be helpful to think in terms of brand archetypes. Kaye Putnam coined the idea of a brand archetype to help creators get in touch with the essence of their brand and use psychology to drive their brand strategy. Putnam’s brand archetype marketing strategy is focused on allowing you to find your brand’s core identity.
Because different meanings and emotions are ascribed to certain colors, it’s important to understand your brand’s personality to its core before you pick a palette to align with that identity. What are the adjectives that describe your brand? Are you accessible, approachable, and informal? Quirky, versatile, and warm? Exclusive, cool, and bold? Ask yourself who you want your brand to be and how you want consumers to perceive you. What gives your brand a unique edge over the competition?
Who will your brand reach?
Once you establish your identity and the message you want to send out to the world, you need to determine who your target audience is. Who do you want to sell to, and what colors will they be inclined towards? What will they want to spend their money on?
If you’re appealing to highly eco-conscious people who want clean brands with sustainable manufacturing and packaging, use neutrals, earthtones, whites, greens, and browns. Your audience will immediately recognize your brand’s alignment with their values.
If your brand appeals to busy, work-focused people who value qualities like strength, intellect, and powerful, chic aesthetic, all-black branding will grab their attention and align with their interests.
What do different colors make buyers feel?
Steve Jobs famously chose white for Apple to embody minimalism and purity in his design. The bright yellow branding of Cheerios evokes feelings of health and youth and is so iconic that Cheerios tried to patent it. Google’s multicolored logo oozes whimsy and playful irreverence. Coca Cola chose red simply for recognizability, but got lucky, because red is the color most associated with impulse purchases and has surely contributed at least in some small part to their wild success.
How can you employ colors with as much success as these top international brands? Once you know who you want your brand to be, explore what various colors mean to craft a strategic visual identity.
White
Purity, open space, minimalism, neutrality, and cleanliness. A good choice for a brand identity which sells clean products and uses natural ingredients, as it implies a sort of closeness to earth and innocence.
Black
Black is high-drama and evokes drama, power, authority, strength and intelligence. It’s largely used in edgy and modern brands that feel sophisticated and refined.
Red
Red is often employed to create a sense of urgency and excitement in buyers as it's a high energy, almost dangerous color. It’s also associated with love, romance, and intense passion. However, red is versatile and in more subdued shades can symbolize comfort and warmth.
Orange
Orange creates excitement, happiness, and vitality. In branding, orange is often associated with budget-friendly products — prime examples include Home Depot’s, Payless Shoesource, and Amazon.
Yellow
Yellow is vibrant and brings cheerfulness, laughter, and optimism. It commands attention and is also used to make people feel hungry — as famously demonstrated by the McDonald’s golden arches. It’s a playful and youthful color.
Green
Green evokes a feeling of growth (such as botanical growth, or personal growth) and makes consumers think of nature and sustainable agriculture. It’s a great choice for healthy, natural brands. It also evokes fertility, harmony, and can be used to create a sense of wealth because of its association with money.
Blue
Blue is a versatile color which can evoke a variety of emotions depending on the shade used. Light blue is often associated with calmness, serenity, and trust. Dark blue evokes professionalism, security, wealth, and royalty, which is why many banks — Citibank, Chase Bank, and Bank of America, for example — use blue in their branding.
Purple
Purple represents royalty, wealth, sophistication and luxury. A classic example of this is the sack that a bottle of Crown Royal comes in, which screams majesty and prosperity despite being an inexpensive alcohol. This is an intentional image Crown Royal curates by manufacturing an inexpensive whisky and presenting it as luxurious.
Pink
Pink is youthful and sometimes romantic. What shade of pink you use will determine whether your branding feels feminine and romantic or gentle and calming (such as a pastel pink). Light, toned down pink feels modern and chic.
Start experimenting
Once you’ve determined what your brand identity is and what colors you want to use to evoke your unique brand perspective and elicit emotional reactions, it’s time to start thinking creatively about how you’ll choose a color — or create a palette of colors — to represent your brand.
For instance, ask yourself if your brand will be monochromatic — that is, made up of various tones, tints, and shades of a color in the same hue — or employ a bright multicolored palette to create a whimsical feel, or stick with minimal colors — maybe even only a couple basic colors — to get your message across.
Avoid using the same colors as your direct competitors. You want your brand to be highly recognizable, and it’s hard to command influence and stand out if your packaging looks the same as the product next to yours on the shelf, or if your site is a carbon copy of your competitors’. While it’s tempting to stick with the status quo to avoid a strategy that flops, it’s far more effective to think about what makes your brand different from your competitors and then play that up in your branding.
Need help getting started?
Building a brand is extremely fulfilling — but can often feel downright overwhelming. Schedule a consultation with ICEY’s creative team to get started on crafting a visual identity and bringing your brand to life.
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