What Color Are You?

What color are you? I'm talking about your brand color. It's something that can be easily overlooked, but shouldn't be. For years, marketing professionals have applied their knowledge of the psychological effect of colors when branding for large corporations. Who doesn't know about the golden arches or Big Blue? However, I must admit that I associated the orange ball with "I-N-G", long before I even knew what ING was (just in case you still don't know, ING provides financial services).

Carefully selecting your color when branding is important whether you're branding a company, product, service, or yourself (you don't have to be a celebrity to have a personal brand). Lots of research has been conducted and shows a strong relationship between color and marketing. Research from CCICOLOR Institute for Color Research, reveals that people make a subconscious judgment about a person, environment, or product within 90 seconds of initial viewing and that between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on color alone.

Color theorists have more extensive descriptions of value judgements and color, but here's my Cliffsnotes version.

WHITE – purity, peace, contentment
BLACK – boldness, seriousness, elegance
Gray or Silver – high tech, authority, practicality
GOLD – wealth, prosperity, happiness
BLUE – sanctuary, faithfulness, confidence.
RED – warmth, power, excitement
YELLOW – spiritual, happiness, warmth
GREEN – freedom, healing, tranquility
BROWN – richness, politeness, helpfulness
ORANGE – contentment, pleasure,
PINK – gentleness, romance, well being
PURPLE – royalty, spirituality, dignity

In my next post, I'll look what colors have to say about your website.