Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. What is Branding?
3. How are branding and Psychology related? 
4. The psychology of colour in branding 
5. Final Thoughts

 

Introduction

Your brand is the core of your business, and it’s what you’re trying to sell to people. It could be a product, an image, or a feeling. It’s what makes you different from everyone else.

Creating a good brand means knowing who you are, who you want to be, and who people perceive you to be. Once you know that, it becomes easier to identify your target audience.

But what creates a brand? And what goes into building a strong one?

That’s where branding comes in. 

Branding is the art of creating and spreading your own unique identity.

So before diving into how colour psychology plays an integral role in branding, first we need to understand what a brand is and why branding and colour are crucial. Let’s get started. 

 

What is branding?

Branding is the process of creating a name, a symbol, or a design that identifies and differentiates your business from other businesses.

It is important because not only is it what makes a memorable impression on consumers but it allows your customers and clients to know what to expect from your company. It is a way of distinguishing yourself from the competitors and clarifying what it is you offer that makes you the better choice. Your brand is built to be a true representation of who you are as a business, and how you wish to be perceived.

It’s all about creating a unique identity for your own product so that it stands out from the other products in the same niche.

For example, Apple is more than just its logo; it’s also its culture, its ads, and its style. The same goes with Nike, Netflix, or any other brand you can think of.

 

How are branding and psychology related?

Branding needs psychology to establish and nurture an emotional connection between consumers and a brand. 

So much of the business world today is driven by opinion and emotion, rather than logic and reason. For example, many people buy Apple products simply because of the brand and the status, whether they need that product or not. This is the power of branding in action.

But more than anything else, branding is about psychology. A lot of time and money goes into figuring out how to persuade consumers to part with their hard-earned cash. If a company can affect what people think and feel about its brand, it will be able to influence buying decisions as well.

The idea that branding and psychology are related has been analyzed by researchers for many years. Marketers who understand the psychological effect of their brand can create effective campaigns that attract and persuade potential customers. 

If we define brand loyalty as a deeply held commitment to rebuy a preferred product/service consistently in the future causing repetitive same-brand purchasing, then branding can be seen as one of the most prominent factors affecting consumer choice. The impact that brands have on people’s minds at both conscious and unconscious levels cannot be underestimated.

 

The psychology of colour in branding.

Since a brand’s identity can be represented through colour, shape, form, texture, sound, taste, smell, or even touch; branding is about much more than a name, logo, or slogan. The perceived value of your brand is strongly influenced by the colour you choose for your brand design. The psychology of colour in branding can be used to invoke specific emotions and subconscious triggers that influence consumer decisions.

Without a doubt, researchers and marketers have picked up on patterns in human responses to colours. But none of these are watertight. For instance, one person might think of red as an exciting, appealing colour—and the next person might associate it with blood and gore. Context and the intended audience are essential. Black can be stable and dependable in one context, or edgy and rugged in the next. Moreover, factors such as culture, gender, and age mean different colours are perceived in different ways by different people. 

More importantly, branding and psychology have a common ground: both study behaviour. The decision-making process is the core of both fields. For marketers, this is an essential process since they aim at influencing their potential consumers in order to gain business.

Everything in our environment was designed and built with our psychology in mind. The one thing that exists in everything is colour.

Colour is a powerful tool to communicate, connect, and attract. Colour can help you build a personality, character and emotional connection with your audience. Branding with colour is the most powerful way to stand out in a marketplace filled with me-too products and unmemorable brands.

When used correctly, colour can increase brand recognition by as much as more than 70-80%.

There is this magical power that colour has over our minds, and it is something that many people fail to realize. As it turns out, colour can actually affect people’s moods and feelings. Some people even associate different colours with different ideas and beliefs.

Colour can have a profound impact on our brain – whether we recognize it or not. Colour helps us identify brands easily, communicate messages clearly, and make decisions quickly. Colour can also be associated with our moods, feelings, or even actions. 

Here’s an example of how logos are designed using these principles in mind. 

Apple uses white because it stands for simplicity and purity; Nike uses black because it represents sophistication; YouTube uses red because it represents excitement; Coca-Cola uses red because it stands for strength. 

For example, if you want to sell an expensive product or something that excites the consumer, you should use red in your packaging because the colour red makes people more willing to pay more for products. Netflix is the best example.

 

Final Thoughts

Branding and psychology are two fields that intersect in many ways. From how we choose our favourite brands to how we remember them, the science of psychology can explain why consumers make the decisions they do when it comes to their favourite companies.

The power of colour in branding is well-known in marketing circles. The colours you choose for your logo and the hues you use to represent your brand can have a significant impact on how people perceive your business — especially if you understand the psychology behind colour branding.

Colour elicits emotion and influences how people behave — and those emotions can be very powerful forces for influencing decisions. Colours help to identify a product and distinguish it from other products and services. They can make us feel more calm or excitable, they can even make us feel more hungry or thirsty! 

In nutshell, the psychology of colour in branding is the idea that the colours you choose for your business will affect the way your customers feel about your brand.

 

Writing Credit – Pranjali