Claudia Pisarek's Marketing Blog

Companies are trying to get consumers attention by attracting through colours.

On a regular basis, we don’t think of why a product or a brand is a certain colour – we just take it how it is. However, there is a lot of behind-the-scene work that goes into it. While reading Jin Park’s blog post on Colour Marketing, I decided to look more into the relationship between different colours in products and their impact on consumers. Jin used the example of Dewalt power tools being yellow and black, in comparison to other power tools which are mainly grey. He goes on to state that this attract attention and make consumers perceive “ manliness and [a] professional look”.

There is a lot of research done in this area of advertising in respect to psychology. Research conducted by Marie-Christine Lichtlé dives a little deeper as she suggests that “the attitude towards an ad is influenced by the emotion it arouses” (Lichtlé,2007,p. 43) .  Lichtlé’s shows that the effect of the colour is based on a person’s optimal stimulation level (OSL). For individuals with high OSLs, the attitude towards the ad is more favourable when the ad is of a red hue when it is strongly saturated” (Lichtlé,2007, p.17). Lichtlé concluded saying that colour does not affect everyone identically (as it is based on OSL) and marketers need to take that into consideration when decided colours.

However, whether indirectly or directly, the colour does create some response.  It could also be beneficial for market researchers to further segment the market in order to maximize returns and positive effects from the colour since individuals have different OSL levels.

                Also, we naturally associate colours with descriptive words and ideas that match. Furthermore, as Jin mentioned in his blog-the fact that colour attracts attention. It can be a point of difference in a competitive market. When used correctly, it is a cost effective method that can assist on brand awareness and success.

Sources:

Jin Park Blog Post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/lukatsky/2013/10/10/colour-marketing/

Lichtlé M. (2007). The effect of an advertisement’s colour on emotions evoked by an ad and attitude towards the ad: The moderating role of the optimal stimulation level. International Journal of Advertising, 26, 37–62