We’ve all been there; you’re in a supermarket faced with four or five different brands of breakfast cereal. Your head’s telling you that they all taste the same and part of you feels that you should just choose the cheapest option. Despite this, you feel inexplicably drawn to one particular pack and you’re not quite sure why. That’s the result of a lot of time, effort and research by that brand’s marketing team, and you’ve just proved their theory has worked!
Major brands invest thousands into marketing their products, and any packaging has been created, not on a whim, but based on tried and tested psychological methodology and insight.
Consumers require a mere split-second to form an immediate opinion about a product; some products appear mouth-watering right away, others don’t. Some shower-gels are particularly feminine, while others are manly. It becomes even more phenomenal considering consumers form these rapid-fire judgments regardless of whether they’ve tried the actual product or not. Their thought process is based completely on implicit associations, automatic thought concepts linked in the brain.
In a market overflowing with products and with consumers spoilt for choice, there’s no room for failure if a brand wants to stay competitive. Product packaging must appeal to all the senses of sight, touch and smell in order to evoke the emotional responses that inspire a consumer to make that purchase. Colour plays a big part in this process. We’re all consumers but chances are, you’ve probably never realised how much we’re all manipulated to purchase products when we see a certain colour.
Understanding colour psychology is therefore fundamental to the success of packaging; poor colour choice can harm your product and alter your brand’s message. It can also set the tone for the rest of their experience. Getting to grips with each colour, and understanding how each signifies a different message, will help you understand consumer emotions and reactions.
According to research, red is set up to excite and increase metabolism. Red is a powerful colour known to stimulate and can actually heighten nerve impulses and increase the heart rate. Similar to what happens when we are hungry and the brain releases neurons, red enhances the appetite and stimulates a physical response. Red is widely used in food marketing and can be found across the majority of food product packaging. Using red and yellow together evokes the taste buds and stimulates the appetite. This helps us understand why this colour combination is a popular choice in the fast food industry – think KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and Burger King.
Red packaging has the effect of drawing attention to products, stimulating the senses and exciting potential consumers. Dark reds being perceived as professional and luxurious, with bright reds being seen as more exciting, energetic and generally of lower perceived value. Adding gold or silver as part of the design or decoration can increase perceived value. Blue-reds are more attractive to the ‘upper-class’ market, orange reds more are attractive to ‘working-class’ consumers. Orange reds are known to have a lower perceived price and value.
Sometimes less is more. White is the colour of innocence and purity. It’s the simplest of all colours and also one of the most versatile, particularly when used with darker colours. As a packaging colour it's seen as safe, basic, unadventurous and conservative, but a good choice when brands want to create the impression of cleanliness, purity, efficiency or simplicity. The colour has become synonymous with high quality. It’s particularly popular when packaging white coloured products such as milk, soft cheeses, yogurt, cream etc. Here it can help a brand give the impression of being natural and fresh.
By adding printing a complimentary colour, a number of other messages can be conveyed: adding red suggests excitement and draws attention to the product. Yellow decoration implies a more light-hearted, happy and fun product. The addition of black brings a feeling of sophistication and prestige.
The colour of authority, elegance and mystery. Black is used just as often as white but communicates a completely different message. Using black as a main colour in your packaging exudes a top-tier product identity and also represents elegance. Globally, black exemplifies a wide range of emotions, from trust to evil, and also mourning. Selecting different coloured packaging for different locations may be worth considering when selling globally for this reason. By aligning colour selection with your product and its intended retail geography you’ll avoid potential issues further down the line.
Research has concluded that blue represents intelligence, trust and security. Different hues and shades of blue inspire these senses. Darker blues emote more serious feelings. Whereas lighter blues trigger more playful and light hearted thoughts. Blue can also evoke sadness or aloofness. Think of how the colour is depicted in our everyday language: “the blues,” “blue funk,” “blue Monday.” All these idioms have slightly dreary connotations.
Blue is often seen as the safest colour to use in packaging, universally the most liked across most demographics. It is, however, seen as boring and predictable. If your target consumer is younger, it’s probably best to avoid blue as they often associate the colour with more mature people. Brighter, more neon or electric blues would work in this space though.
Packaging colour can also be heavily influenced by trends. Green is the main colour associated with being fresh, healthy, natural, organic or vegetarian, and is now a symbol of health and wellbeing. In food marketing, green is the perfect choice if you want to emphasise or make a claim about natural ingredients or the health benefits associated. It's also frequently used for promoting a product that has been produced in an ecological and environmentally friendly way. Green is also seen as a calming colour - actors often wait in “green rooms” to calm their nerves as it’s believed to relieve stress and have a soothing effect.
Orange packaging suggests affordability, fun and adventure. There’s almost a degree of risk in buying a product in orange packaging - will it be something different, quality at an affordable price, or just something cheap and poor quality. While some variations of orange can give the impression of cheapness, adding another colour to the packaging can change the message and increase the perceived value - add dark blue to suggest reliability and trustworthiness. Black decoration increases the perceived value of the product.
As a blend of red and yellow, orange produces similar effects and naturally lends itself to food as an appetising colour. It stimulates senses and emotions which can encourage impulse buying and is therefore a good choice for convenience snacks and food-to-go products.
Yellow is cheerful, optimistic and uplifting to the spirits. It inspires original ideas and creativity. Stimulating to mental abilities, it aids in decision making. In packaging yellow suggests either something original and innovative or a cheap, fun product. With its positive and happy energy it attracts children and young adolescents. Products that aim to lift people's spirits would be appropriate in yellow packaging.
Turquoise, in colour psychology, means clarity of thought and communication. It calms the emotions and recharges the spirit, invigorating depleted energy levels and inspiring positive thoughts. Turquoise is a good colour for health clinics and practitioners as it balances the emotions and calms the spirit. The use of turquoise for cleaning products is ideal as it reflects cleanliness and purity without being too sterile. Turquoise is generally suitable for both males and females, although males are more attracted to a deeper variation of turquoise such as teal. The complimentary colours used on packaging can also change the appeal of turquoise - adding black strengthens the look, adding dark blue makes it more conservative. Adding pink makes it more appealing to the female market. Adding red makes it a more exciting attention-grabbing package.
Purple relates to high ideals, imagination and spirituality. Using purple in your packaging colours implies luxury, extravagance, premium quality or uniqueness, particularly if used with gold or silver printing or decoration. 'New age' products are often packaged in purple to suggest individuality, originality and uniqueness. With purple being the union of body and soul, it is appropriate for packaging of holistic products and anything to do with spirituality. Purple tends to be more attractive to the female and younger market, although it’s slowly becoming more acceptable to males. Lighter hues imply fantasy or nostalgia and on packaging tends to exude more peaceful, tranquil emotions. Purple is also often associated with royalty because historically, only the rich were able to afford the expensive items made with the hard-to-produce pigment. Adding different colours on your pack will accentuate the messaging of the purple: silver or gold addsl uxury, prestige and quality. Adding red adds energy and excitement. Magenta adds liveliness. Green or blue will give a feel-good impression.
Pink is inspiring, warm, compassionate and comforting, suggesting hope for the future. It’s calming and non-threatening. Pink packaging is generally most appropriate for products relating to the female market such as fashion, cosmetics, beauty and romance. Pink is feminine and youthful in its softer shades, with more passion and energy in its deeper shades. Combining pink with darker colours gives it more sophistication and strength. Brighter pinks on your packaging tends to suggest a less expensive and trendy product which is attractive to the teenage and pre-teen market. Dusty or muted pink packaging attracts a more sentimental and older market. Adding silver decoration adds elegance to dusty or muted pinks.
Gold packaging suggests luxurious, expensive and high quality. However, your product needs to reflect this high standard or you will lose credibility - a poor quality product inside gold packaging will appear cheap and have the same effect as fake gold. You can change the message of gold packaging by adding a different colour on your pack - red will add an element of excitement. Black will suggest elegance and sophistication. Dark blue will create a more serious and professional look.
Silver packaging implies elegance and sophistication. It’s more subtle than gold and combines well with almost all other colours illuminating key text or design features on the packaging. Silver combines well with most other colours; dark blue decoration will suggest a conservative and trustworthy product, purple decoration will suggest luxurious and unique, black decoration will suggest serious and sophisticated. Combined with black, dark blue, dark red or dark green, silver packaging is elegant, classy and professional. To give silver packaging a modern hi-tech look, combine it with blue, turquoise, black or dark grey.
Grey is a conservative colour signifying neutrality, indifference and reserve. It lacks energy but serves well as a background colour, allowing other colours with it to take prominence. It’s a relatively safe colour to use on packaging and used in the right way can be very effective. It’s neutral and serious but can be combined with almost any other colour to impart different messages and reach different target consumers. Adding red gives grey more energy and excitement, adding dark blue makes it look more professional, adding black gives it a more sophisticated appearance, adding gold makes it more luxurious. Light grey packaging combines well with the majority of colours and can create a modern and hi-tech look when combined with turquoise, light blue, dark blue or yellow.
Psychologically, brown is associated with strength and solidarity, comfort and earthiness, maturity and reliability. As a packaging colour, brown is appropriate for products that suggest wholesome and organic, safety, or homely. Brands often use shades of brown for natural products and food.
Packaging is the most tangible representation of a product or brand for consumers and is therefore a primary selling tool for marketers, hence why it is important to spend time getting it right. Attractive, colourful and striking packaging can help in boosting the sales of a product while selection of the wrong colours may negatively impact sales. Therefore, organisations and brands strive to augment their market offerings and sales of each product by attempting to influence the perception and behaviour of customers through the colours used in their packaging.
Packaging colour choice isn’t arbitrary, nor is it necessarily about selecting an aesthetically pleasing colour. Instead, brands must draw on both deeply ingrained colour psychology and a pre-existing visual lexicon of product associations to create packaging that speaks to the consumer in a language they understand.
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