How Color Affects Branding
Using Color to Build Brand Identity and Customer Loyalty
When it comes to brands, color is about so much more than looking pretty. Color is a powerful branding tool that can work to your advantage – if you use it well. How will you use color to communicate your brand to current and potential customers?
Color evokes emotions, so it will determine not only what customers think of your brand but also how they feel about it. And how customers perceive your brand directly affects how they interact with your brand, their purchasing decisions, whether or not they share your social posts, and the way in which they communicate about your brand with other people.
Ask yourself: How do I want my customers to feel about my brand?
While diving into the psychology of customers may feel daunting, the idea is pretty simple. Start with your brand style, and the rest will fall into place. What is your brand personality? Is it playful, sophisticated, classic, rugged, efficient, athletic, intelligent, bold, approachable…? Once you settle on that, you can start choosing the right colors to represent your brand’s style.
What Colors Represent
Personality + Color = Mood
Particularly in today’s fast-paced business environment, first impressions are key. Customer attention spans are short, so if you don’t grab them immediately, you may miss out. Quick glances, fast scrolls…a few seconds is all the time you have for an initial first impression. Once you stop the scroll, you need to keep them with you. And once they scroll past again, how will you help them remember you?
Warm Colors
If your brand is bold, energetic, or focused on action and movement, the color red can help evoke feelings of excitement and passion. It’s often used in the food and entertainment industries, and it’s a color that sticks in the mind.
Orange best represents brands that want to be approachable or see themselves as youthful, energetic, and even fun. Orange is also often used in luxury brands, offering a luxe yet attainable feel. Orange evokes feelings of creativity, friendliness, and enthusiasm – ideal for tech companies, lifestyle brands, and kid-focused brands.
Retail, food, and hospitality brands often turn to yellow to showcase their style, evoking optimism, warmth, and welcoming. Yellow is cheerful and inviting, not taking itself too seriously.
Cool Colors
Cool colors possibly span the widest variety of styles, representing brands as reliable and trustworthy, natural and fresh, sustainable, premium, creative, and outdoorsy. When people see the color blue in branding, they often feel relaxed, calm, and at ease with the brand. The brand vibe is stable, secure, and professional – often used in the health industry, finance, and tech.
Green, a favorite among many brands, feels natural and fresh. It evokes feelings of growth, health, and balance. Wellness brands, eco-focused brands, and outdoors brands use many shades of green to showcase their personality.
Purple is a vibe…and it takes a special brand to use it. Emotions run wild with purple, representing luxury, imagination, creativity, introspection, and depth. Beauty brands flock to purple, along with luxury brands and even brands focused on spirituality.
Neutral Colors
Neutral colors most often represent brands that work to be chic, bold, understated, and grounded. Neutral colors – just like when styling a look – stand out as sophisticated and high-end. Black can portray power, authority, and a bold outlook. White is clean, simple, modern, and open. Grey, when used in the right tone, can feel calming, balanced, and professional. And brown grounds a brand, eliciting feelings of reliability, rustic elegance, and authenticity.
Staying on Brand with Colors - and Why it Matters
As a business owner, you know that consistency is key. Staying on brand across all platforms – socials, website, packaging, ads – ensures instant recognition of your brand, no matter what medium you’re relying on. Think about brands you know by a color, even without seeing the logos. Coca-Cola red, UPS brown, Tiffany blue…you instantly recognize those companies at a glance.
Consistently using brand colors reinforces the tone of your brand, helps foster loyalty with returning customers, breeds familiarity with your brand personality, and encourages potential customers to take a second look. It also boosts ad performance, as consumers will have better brand recall, click through to your website more often, and notice your content in crowded feeds and oversaturated online spaces.
If your colors pop during quick scrolls, you’re more likely to get a click. And of course, it’s a numbers game. More clicks mean more chances to bring in more business.
Just remember – all of your branding should look like it belongs in the same space. If your brand kit is neutrals, neons don’t belong unless used sparingly for a special event or specific purpose. Going off-brand with colors can lead to confusion and can even cheapen the look of your company.
The 60-30-10 Rule
This simple rule can help keep you on brand when it comes to color choices. Use 60% primary colors, 30% secondary colors, and 10% accent colors. Accent colors should be used sparingly, but they can be a great tool in breaking up the monotony of primary colors or in highlighting a feature/sale for your business.
Focus on 2 to 4 main brand colors, using accents intentionally for buttons, CTAs, announcements, sales, etc. Also, remember: colors can look very different between the web and print. Double-check your color values to ensure consistency across all platforms. Use similar filters and themes on social, and find unique ways to stand out from the crowd. A signature shade is a great way to do this!
Color with Intention
Outside of your primary colors, your accent colors can really add depth to your brand identity. Assign meaning to colors by using them for specific things. If your sales are yellow, your new products are green, and upcoming events are blue, customers will begin to recognize the patterns and quickly know what you’re offering. Studies show that colors can actually boost brand recognition by up to 80%!
The Brand Should Match the Business
Don’t forget – just using coordinating colors won’t cut it. You can make your brand kits, ads, and social posts look fantastic, but it doesn’t mean anything if you can’t back it up. The quality and type of product you’re offering should reflect the image you’re presenting.
As your business flows with the seasons, consider accent colors that complement your changes. Use color as a storytelling device, setting the mood for product journeys, customer milestones, product launches, events, and more. The idea is to create an experience as opposed to an identity that is static.
