The power of colour in branding

Branding is all about communicating the essence of your company, your products or your services to your target market.

Colour is the very first design element that people will perceive when they come in contact with your brand and is therefore foundational to your brand’s visual identity. Which is why choosing colours that reinforce your brand values, optimise customer recall, and distinguish your brand among its competitors is so important.

Brand recognition

As a brand owner, you don’t have a lot of time to grab a potential customer’s attention. Colour offers an instantaneous method of conveying meaning and message without words. The trick is to select the right combination of colours and design elements to make a positive and memorable impression. And hopefully through repetition and using your colour choices consistently, you’ll strengthen brand awareness and get people coming back for more.

To give you an example of how important colour can be for a memorable brand, Signs.com conducted an “experiment” asking 156 Americans between the ages of 20 and 70 to draw 10 famous logos from memory. Despite the differences, most participants did manage to get the colour palettes right!

Colour triggers a diverse set of responses

Whether we realise it or not, colours impact us on an emotional level and we make many of our decisions (particularly in relation to purchases) based on emotions. Most colours generally have both positive and negative associations. When you analyse the three primary colours, for example:

It is also important to note that colour means different things to people in different parts of the world, in different cultures.

Are your colours working for you?

Testing is the best way to make sure you’ve nailed your colour choice. First, eliminate any colours that have negative connotations in any cultural markets where you will be active. Then, whittle down your list of possibilities, which should all support your brand message while contrasting with each other well.

You can test one colour against another allowing the better candidate to move forward until you determine the optimal colour.

If you look at some of the most recognisable brands, you will notice that many have one main or base colour and then maybe one or two accent colours. Too many colours makes it harder for your logo to stand out against competitors and be memorable, and will also probably be very hard on the eye!

If you need assistance designing your logo or brand packaging, we are here to help. Email us at mail@zinity.com.au.

In one of our upcoming blog posts, we will talk about trade marks and whether colour trade marks are a good option for you and your brand.

Did you know?

Cadbury has an Australian trade mark registration covering the purple colour known specifically as Pantone 2685C

The registrations allows Cadbury to prevent competitors from using that shad of purple, or a confusingly similar shade, for the packaging of chocolate products.