Psychology Of Color, Consumer Behavior and Branding

Psychology of color is a science of understanding the emotions and sentiments that a color evokes in a viewer’s mind and brain. It has a deep influence on how a consumer reacts to your web properties and how well you play with them to influence their buying decision.  Let’s dig deeper to understand how it can be utilized for changing a consumer behavior and creating an unfailing branding.   

Psychology of color in website design: An example

 Blue signifies trust and reliability. The world’s largest social network is primarily blue. Facebook is a brand that swears by its brand value and transparency and for this reason the color choice is also apt.  

Psychology of color in logo: An example

 Red evokes youthfulness and excitement. For this reason, it’s the ideal color for a gaming company that caters to young adults, who are also impulse buyers. A perfect logo color choice for Nintendo indeed. 

Psychology of color in CTA button: An example

 Choosing the right color for your CTA button is crucial, because it’s directly related to your conversion rate. Even Google experimented with 4000 shades blue before ending up with the right one for them.  

Importance of color in branding:

 When you are asked to pick the right color for branding, you must think of your audience and their behavior to different colors. A study found that the product or service that you are offering is equally important in influencing a buyer journey.  If you are an eCommerce site owner then check out this infographic to understand how color plays an important role in influencing the purcahse decision of the buyers.   

 (Source : kissmetrics)  The audience is divided into three major groups. Furthetmore, the color shades are segmented according to the buying behavior and product type.  Let’s discuss it from a different angle. A KissMetrics blog showed that colors can affect the conversion rates. The survey showed that most of the women buyers (35%) confirmed blue as their favorite color, followed by purple (23%) and green (14%). 33% of them said that orange was the least preferred hue, followed by brown (33%) and gray (17%).  

 But when it comes to men, blue, green, and black topped the list of most loved shades while brown, orange, and purple were the least liked ones. So, considering the majority of your target audience should also be an index to choose the right color for your brand.  

Color psychology and eCommerce: 

A survey by the Seoul International Color Expo proved that color plays the most important role in online shopping. It shows that 93% consumers confirmed color as the most important shopping stimulator. Another study by the Institute for Color Research showed that most online buyers (85%) consider color as the most crucial factor to choose a product.   

10 eCommerce sites that play with color psychology the right way:

# 1: Walmart: It’s one of the leading eCommerce sites in the world. The primary color of the site is blue and yellow. Blue symbolizes trust and yellow represents cheerfulness. Yellow also grabs the customer attention very easily, but here it’s used very moderately, so it does not create anxiety in a consumer’s mind.    

#2: Reebok: The predominant color scheme for Reebok eCommerce site are black and red. Black symbolizes power and luxury items. Red promotes impulse buying. The balance between black and red is rightly done by gray, which portrays calm and balance.   

#3: My Own Bike: The main color is yellow for this online bike store. Yellow signifies youth and cheerfulness, thus the best color selection for a product that is made for the young generation.  

#4: Stella McCartney: White represents purity and elegance. It’s the ideal color choice for an eComerce store that deals with elegant clothing items. The white background of Stella McCartney makes it all the more clean and sophisticated.  

#5: Cafe Press: Green for eCommerce is the perfect choice for shoppers, who love to do budget shopping. For this reason, Cafe Press that sells affordable custom gift items, rightly uses green as the primary color.  

#6: Nite Watches: Black evokes a sense of power and sophistication. On top of that, it is a great choice for impulse buyers. For this reason, many lifestyle brands that mainly cater to men, use black as their main hue. Nite Watches is one of them.  

#7: Hard Graft: Brown signifies durability and genuineness. For a brand that sells leather products, it’s very important to showcase these two attributes. For this reason, brown is ideal for Hard Graft.  

#8: Mum Made: As the name suggests, this eCommerce store sells baby products, created by moms. For this reason, it plays with with soft shades like reds and pinks. Moreover, the color scheme is ideal for traditional buyers.  

# 9: Nordstrom: This popular lifestyle brand is primarily white along with some tinges of vibrant reds. Red symbolizes youth and at the same time evokes a shopping spree within an impulse buyer.  

#10: AutoZone: Orange demonstrates energy, ambition, and confidence. AutoZone sells car parts and for this reason, it needs to demonstrate a sense of confidence with the color choices. There cannot be a better color other than orange for this site.  

Your thoughts…

 Now you must have understood the deep science behind color psychology and branding. All these brands have invested a lot of time, effort, and money to select that one color scheme that goes well with their audience. Sometimes, it’s not even once. They keep R&Ding several times to evolve the color scheme to match with the changing marketing era and consumer behavior.  Do you have a similar story? Share it with us. Or need help with finding the right color theme for your brand? Fill in the no-obligation form with your business details.