Colour Psychology and Digital Marketing

Source: The Logo Company

Before you launch your next social media campaign, design your next piece of content, landing page, website or logo, take a moment to think about colour psychology and the impact of colour on digital marketing. It may change the success of your marketing efforts.

My take on colour psychology is this, it is clear that colour sometimes has an effect on people’s choice and emotions. There are copious amounts of research that confirms this. (Refer to the research noted at the bottom of this blog for details.) Therefore, when trying to influence consumer behaviour, lets try to use everything we can in our arsenal to get the results we want. After all, we’ve got nothing to lose!

What is Colour Psychology?

Wikipedia defines colour psychology as:

“Color psychology is the study of hues as a determinant of human behaviour…

…Colour can indeed influence a person, however it is important to remember that these effects differ between people. Factors such as gender, age, and culture can influence how an individual perceives colour.

..Color psychology is also widely used in marketing and branding. Many marketers see color as an important part of marketing because colour can be used to influence consumers’ emotions and perceptions of goods and services. Companies also use color when deciding on brand logos.”

A number of factors can influence a person’s reaction to colour, such as: gender, culture and age. In this blog I will try to give you an understanding of some generalisations regarding colour psychology. I will also discuss the impact that gender, culture and age have on colour perceptions.

Particularly interesting are the studies of the effect of colour on buyer behaviour.

In a peer reviewed journal article, Satyendra Singh, (2006) “Impact of color on marketing”, Management Decision states:

“People make up their minds within 90 seconds of their initial interactions with either people or products. About 62‐90 per cent of the assessment is based on colors alone”

QuickSprout states that colour accounts for 85% of the reason that people choose to purchase a particular product and colour increases brand recognition by 80%

Hubspot ran an A/B test changing only the colour of the call to action button from red to green and the results were an amazing 21% difference! You are probably thinking that green attained a higher conversion rate. Actually it was the opposite, red garnered a 21% greater conversion response.

Joe Hollock conducted a number of tests on a diverse cross section people of different ages, cultural backgrounds and genders and asked them a series of questions based on 10 colours (including black and white).

When asked which colour they associate with speed, 76% of the participants said red. This might have some impact on the Hubspot call to action button test explained above.

Lets have a closer look at some of the results of this study.

Colour Associations Study by Joe Hollock

The favourite and least favourite colour for the group studied was:

As I mentioned earlier, gender has some impact on colour preferences as the study illustrates:

People tend to associate colour with objects they purchase. The survey asked questions relating to purchasing behaviour.

The study also asked questions to see if the following emotions had colour associations

There are as some associations between colour and emotions in the English language, such as, green with envy or blue meaning sad. The terms below do not typically have colour associations and are worthy of noting if you are creating a logo.

Colour Psychology and Brand Personality

Colour psychology can play a significant role when forming a brand personality.

Psychologist and Stanford professor, Jennifer Aaker conducted research that identified five core dimensions that play a role in a brand’s personality:

source: Dimensions of Brand Personality – Jennifer L. Aaker

Each of these dimensions can also correlate to colours. Colours have both positive and negative emotions attached to them. See the summary of colours and their meanings below.