The Psychology of Color: Branding & Marketing

It’s widely known that colors can influence behavior, mood, and action. In fact, there’s an entire study field devoted to how colors can change the way we feel or evoke certain emotions — it’s called color psychology. Since a brand wants its customers to feel inspired enough to purchase their products, color psychology becomes an important aspect of creating your brand’s color palette, deciding the design for different campaigns, and influencing the tone of the brand. Colors can also help strengthen your brand identity and bring cohesion to all marketing materials. Think about some of your favorite brands and a color scheme probably comes to mind: the sunshine yellow of SoulCycle, the bright red of Target, or the forest green of Starbucks. What’s something many successful brands have in common? A color that helps shape their brand identity and build awareness.

With so many color options, it can feel overwhelming sifting through various palettes and choosing the right one for your brand. To help you with the struggles of choosing the right palettes, we’ve put together a question guide to highlight the importance of the psychology of color in your branding and marketing materials. Let’s get started.

What is true to your brand?

The first question you should ask yourself is, “What colors represent my brand’s mission, tone, and values?” Do you want your brand to evoke calming emotions with a soft blue, or do you want a high-energy, impactful color like orange or yellow? The color you choose matters and can influence the messaging of your marketing materials across all platforms.

It’s almost important to note that colors symbolize different things throughout the world. For example, while red is usually associated with passion, anger, or intense energy, you should be careful with the context in which you use it. For example, overusing red in a politically-centered city could seem like a party alliance. If you use it in a different cultural context, such as in a campaign for a non-American audience, red would also be perceived differently. Suppose you were creating a marketing campaign for an Indian audience and used a rich red throughout. Chances are that people would associate it with weddings and celebrations, a context you didn’t know of and therefore didn’t account for in your tone and messaging. While it is virtually impossible to perfectly match colors to consumer behaviors in an increasingly globalized society,  you should still consider the significance different colors have in different parts of the world.

After doing your research, find a color palette that suits your brand and what you stand for. Make sure to choose a color you’re comfortable working around since it will have a huge impact on the tone, marketing strategy, and appearance of your business. The most important thing is to choose a color that feels right to you and your brand community. 

What’s everyone else doing?

As is the case for many parts of business, it’s vital to research what your competition is doing. For example, suppose you’re a baker who uses pastel pinks and yellows for your brand. Do you know what the other local bakeries are doing? What are the bakeries you look up to doing with their colors? How do you feel walking into bakeries with a different color palette? These questions can help inform your color choice and influence a more positive consumer reaction. 

Knowing what your competition is doing can also help with three things:

It tells you if there’s any typical pattern regarding colors you can see. For example, in your research, you can find that most bakeries also operate with the same pastel palette.

It can direct you towards following the same path, creating consumer continuity and bringing people into a familiar space.

It can send you in a completely different color direction than those around you which will help you stand out, make a statement, and drive traffic based on your uniqueness. Who said bakeries can’t have bold pops of blue, green, and purple?

What do your customers think?

Spending time, resources, and energy on understanding how your customers feel about your brand can help you cater your platform to match their expectations and form a loyal community around your brand. Consider sending out surveys and questionnaires to help understand how your customers feel when they use your product, what they think of the existing color story, and what they feel is lacking in your overall brand presence. You could also give a few different color palette options and ask them to pick! Remember that you don’t have to implement every bit of feedback. Surveys are helpful guides and focus points from the people who matter the most—the customers and your community. 

What’s the color story?

‘Color story’ is a loose term referring to the variety of colors, patterns, textures, and design elements that make up your brand. While not your brand’s primary colors, those in your color story help create a unique experience for the customer and build upon the brand’s identity. For example, you may think that the Adidas color story is just black and white because of their logo colors — but it isn’t. Just walk into any Adidas store and see how they use splashes of blue, yellow, pink, black, and white to create an inviting and exciting experience for the consumer. In 2022, Adidas also collaborated with Gucci, thereby expanding their color story significantly for a particular campaign and building upon their brand’s overall awareness. 

A good rule of thumb is that your brand’s color story should be present in most aspects of your marketing: your website, item packaging, store decor, etc. For specific campaigns, your color stories may differ but should always include elements of your brand’s primary colors. 

What have you done in the past, and what do you want in the future?

Brand colors can evolve over time, giving you the freedom and flexibility to change what you did in the past (in case it didn’t work) and try something new. Brands often also use color changes to signify a shift in ownership, direction, or to celebrate a significant national or international cause. Rebranding is a normal part of brand transformation and growth.

If you are in the middle of a rebrand, it’s key to consider how you want to represent the next chapter of your brand’s story through color. Suppose you started your brand with a pale green and decide to morph into a rich forest green with a future rebrand. This can be an opportunity to showcase your brand’s continued growth, elegance, and maturity. 

Color psychology is an important aspect of telling your brand’s story and helping your brand stand out. Although you can find quick psychology tips and tricks online, these probably don’t have the rigorous scientific backing and international commonality that you think they do. Keep this guide handy for when you’re making a new campaign, starting a new brand, or looking for a way to keep things fresh with a rebrand!

Always in your corner,

The Content Queens