The Power of Color Psychology in Branding, Marketing, and Advertising

By Michelle Lewis – Color Psychology Expert & Founder, Color Institute™

When a brand first starts its creative process, one of the first elements thought of are colors. Taking an idea and translating it into a visual medium requires – in its most basic form – visuals…and color is the primary driver of how we as human beings respond to what we see. Approximately 80% of all sensory information we assimilate is visual. (National Center for Biotechnology Information)

As a brand, their biggest motivation is to succeed, right? Success is generated through being seen, which evokes a response. This is done through marketing and advertising.

Branding, Marketing and Advertising entirely lean on the visuals presented. The right color selection can become a strategic asset that can make or break a brand’s connection with its audience. First, let’s prove it.

• 92% put the most importance on visual factors when purchasing products (Secretariat of the Seoul International Color Expo, 2004)
• 84.7% think color is a top reason for buying (Secretariat of the Seoul International Color Expo, 2004)
• 90% of our subconscious judgment about people, places or things is based on color alone (CCICOLOR – Institute for Color Research)
• 80% increase in brand recognition can be attributed to color (University of Loyola, Maryland)

It’s clear that color impacts how we perceive a brand’s personality, influences our emotions, and even drives our purchasing behavior, often without us realizing it.

Color is not just an aesthetic choice, but a powerful psychology-based tool for shaping consumer behavior. The Color Institute™ – with its deep expertise in color science, perception, and design psychology – has long observed how strategic use of color can elevate marketing outcomes. This article dives into that expertise, exploring how color theory, cultural context, and consumer psychology converge to affect branding, digital marketing, and advertising. We’ll look at data-driven evidence and case studies that demonstrate the ROI of color decisions, from boosting brand recognition to lifting conversion rates. Our goal is to help you see why investing in color strategy at every stage of marketing is not only wise but essential for building an emotionally resonant and successful brand – and implement it into your brand.

Color Psychology: How Color Influences Perception and Emotion

Color speaks a language all its own. The way our brains perceive color can trigger instantaneous emotional and behavioral responses. When light of different wavelengths hits our eyes, our brain interprets these signals and associates them with feelings, memories, and meanings – often subconsciously. This is the foundation of color psychology: certain hues consistently evoke specific emotions and impressions in viewers, which educated brands can leverage to communicate without words.

Consider some broadly observed color-emotion connections in the context of marketing (keeping in mind these can vary with context or culture, which we will explore shortly):

• Blue – Often associated with trust, stability, and calmness. It’s no coincidence that blue is used by an estimated 33% of the world’s top brands​ (straitsresearch.com), especially in finance and tech. Companies like Facebook, IBM, and Dell favor blue to signal reliability and security​. Psychologically, viewers tend to find blue professional and soothing, which can foster trust – a key reason financial institutions and healthcare brands gravitate toward it.
  
• Red – Universally noticed and intense, red evokes passion, energy, and urgency. It’s a color of action – stimulating appetite and excitement – which is why we see it in many food and beverage brands and sale promotions​. Coca-Cola’s iconic red logo, for example, projects excitement and energy and has helped make it one of the most recognizable brands in the world​. From fast-food chains to retail clearance signs, red grabs attention and often spurs impulse actions.
  
• Yellow – A color of optimism, warmth, and caution. Marketers use yellow to convey cheerfulness and grab attention. McDonald’s golden arches, for instance, use yellow to elicit a sense of happiness and comfort – “friendly” emotions that encourage diners to feel good about a quick meal​. Yellow’s high visibility also makes it useful for catching the eye (think of yellow sale tags or banners that announce something new or important). (businessinsider.com)
  
• Orange – Associated with energy, creativity, and urgency. It’s playful yet aggressive enough to create a call to action. Many affordable or youth-oriented brands use orange (e.g. Nickelodeon, Fanta) to signal fun or value. Orange can even create a subconscious “buy now” impulse – marketers note it’s a color that can push action, hence its frequent use in clearance or limited-time offer graphics​. (invervemarketing.com)
  
• Green – Commonly linked to nature, growth, and relaxation. Green signifies health and tranquility; brands in the wellness, environmental, or financial sectors use it to indicate freshness or prosperity. For example, Starbucks’ green logo aligns with a message of calm and natural authenticity, inviting customers to relax. In stores, green has even been used to put shoppers at ease, encouraging them to linger longer​.
  
• Purple – Historically the color of royalty and mystique, purple evokes luxury, creativity, or spirituality. It’s less common (only about 0.8% of top brands use purple (straitsresearch.com)​, but when used, it can set a brand apart as imaginative or upscale – think of Cadbury’s rich purple chocolate wrappers implying indulgence and quality, or cosmetic brands using purple to suggest creativity and sophistication.
  
• Black, White, and Gray – Neutral colors that convey simplicity, elegance, and authority. Many luxury and high-tech brands use a neutral palette to appear sleek and timeless. Apple, for instance, leans heavily on clean white, black, and silver/gray in its branding to signal modernity, minimalism, and premium quality​. Neutral tones often serve as a backdrop to let a product’s design speak or to cultivate an air of refinement and professionalism, yet when they advertise, they always bring in color to create a reaction.

It’s important to note that these associations are not arbitrary – they’re rooted in both biology and culture. Biologically, for example, warm colors like red, orange and yellow have longer wavelengths that can literally stimulate and excite the viewer’s perception (raising heart rate or appetite slightly), whereas cool colors like blue, green and purple have shorter wavelengths that tend to calm and relax the viewer​ (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). Studies in food marketing illustrate this well: red is broadly considered appetizing (it reminds us of ripe fruits and hearty meats), while blue can suppress appetite because blue foods are rare in nature and can signal spoilage​. This helps explain why so many fast-food logos combine red and yellow – dubbed the “ketchup and mustard” effect – to simultaneously grab attention and stimulate hunger​ (businessinsider.com)

From a psychological perspective, color can even influence memory and attention. Research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that images in natural color are remembered better than black-and-white versions, as color provides an extra “tag” of information for our brains to store​. (American Psychological Association). In advertising, adding color boosts engagement: ads in color are read up to 42% more often than identical ads in black and white​ (Straits Research). Clearly, color enhances communication and retention.

Key takeaway: Every color choice sends a message. By understanding the basic emotional palette of colors, marketers can intentionally craft brand visuals that evoke the desired feelings in consumers – be it trust, excitement, innovation, or serenity. This is color psychology at work: leveraging innate and learned responses to color to shape consumer perception.

Cultural Context: One Color, Many Meanings

While general color responses are powerful, context is everything. Culture, geography, and personal experience can all influence how a color is perceived. A hue that signifies celebration in one culture might signify mourning in another. For global brands, cultural color intelligence is crucial to ensure the intended message is received positively across markets.

A classic example is the color white. In North American and European contexts, white usually represents purity, innocence, and cleanliness – hence white wedding dresses or the white lab coats of doctors. Brands often use white for minimalist, fresh aesthetics (think of tech or skincare branding) to imply simplicity and purity. However, in many East Asian cultures, white is associated with mourning and loss​. In China and Korea, for instance, white traditionally is the color worn at funerals. A marketing campaign heavy on white in these regions could unintentionally evoke somber undertones instead of the intended optimism or cleanliness. International companies must be aware of such differences. For instance, Apple’s marketing team makes careful cultural adaptations: Apple’s brand is famously minimalist with white and silver products and packaging, and they seldom use red in global branding. But understanding that red symbolizes luck and prosperity in Chinese culture, Apple releases special, red-themed packaging and product editions around the Chinese New Year holiday​. This aligns the brand with local customs and festive emotions, enhancing Apple’s appeal in that market by speaking the cultural color language. (straitsresearch.com)

Other examples of cultural variance include:

• Red: In Western markets, red can mean danger or love/passion. In China and India, red is overwhelmingly positive, signifying joy, luck, and weddings. It’s no accident that Coca-Cola’s red has universal acceptance – it aligns well with these positive connotations in Asia. On the flip side, some Middle Eastern cultures see red as a color of caution or even evil in certain contexts, so usage might need moderation.
  
• Yellow: While yellow is often cheerful in the West, but in parts of Latin America it can symbolize death or sorrow, and in Germany, yellow has been linked historically to envy. Even in paintings of the crucifixion at the Louvre, Judas wears a yellow cape. A marketing message that leans on yellow’s “happy” vibe might not carry the same meaning everywhere.
  
• Green: In Islamic cultures, green is considered sacred (associated with Islam and paradise), which is why it’s favored in many national flags and can convey respect and spiritual importance. A global brand like Starbucks found green to be a positive, harmonizing color that also resonated with its sustainability values – it plays well from North America to the Middle East. However, in some Asian countries, certain shades of green historically were considered unappealing for clothing (a particular green hat in China has an idiomatic meaning of infidelity). These nuances mean brands should double-check color choices for unintended local meanings.
  
• Purple: Often tied to royalty and wealth in Western and Middle Eastern histories (due to rare purple dyes), but in some parts of Latin America, like Brazil, purple can be associated with mourning or death. A luxury product in purple packaging might exude elegance in France, but potentially discomfort in Brazil if not handled carefully.
  
• Black: In much of the West, black is sophisticated (the “little black dress” or a tuxedo, luxury car in black) but also the color of death/funerals. In Japan, black outfits can be associated with formality and elegance, but the color for funerals is more often black as well. Meanwhile in some African nations, like Ghana, specific funerals use red and black together to signify different stages of mourning. Context is key – a sleek black advertisement for a high-end watch is universally stylish, but using all-black branding might not convey positivity in a celebratory context.

The bottom line for brands: When deploying a global campaign or expanding into new markets, research the cultural color codes. The Color Institute™ often advises brands to conduct cultural audits of their palettes. Sometimes a small tweak – like shifting a secondary color or creating region-specific limited editions – can make a huge difference in local reception. We saw how Apple’s splash of culturally significant red paid off. Another example is how McDonald’s in Asia sometimes offers green or red colored burger buns during promotions because they attract curiosity and tie into festivals (green for prosperity during Eid in some regions, red for Chinese New Year), whereas such a tactic might seem odd in the U.S. context.

Being culturally aware doesn’t always mean changing your core brand color. Consistency has its own power. It means adapting and contextualizing your use of color in marketing materials to respect local meanings. In doing so, a brand appears both globally consistent and locally relevant – a recipe for stronger customer connections worldwide. As one marketing director put it, “Color is a language – if you want to speak to your customer’s heart, speak in a color they culturally resonate with.”

For more information on color meanings, please get a copy of our book Color Secrets: Learning The One Universal Language We Were Never Taught.

Color in Branding: Building Identity and Recognition Through Hue

When you think of the world’s most iconic brands, you likely picture their colors immediately: Coca-Cola’s red, Starbucks’ green, IBM’s blue, Tiffany & Co.’s robin’s-egg blue, UPS’s brown. These signature colors are not accidental – they are the result of deliberate brand strategy. Color is a cornerstone of brand identity, and when used consistently, it can become shorthand for the brand itself in consumers’ minds.

The Impact on Brand Recognition and Loyalty

Color can increase brand recognition by up to 80%​. (University of Loyola, Maryland). That figure underscores how critical a consistent color scheme is to “sticky” branding. Brand recognition is the ability of consumers to identify your brand from visual cues like logos, packaging, or advertising even without seeing the brand name. If 80% of that recognition can hinge on color alone, choosing the right brand colors – and using them religiously – is one of the most impactful marketing decisions you can make.

Data in Action: A study by the Seoul International Color Expo found that 84.7% of consumers believe color accounts for more than half of the factors important in choosing a product​. 92% put appearance (which includes color) above other senses when purchasing​.

In other words, the look and feel of your brand – largely defined by color – outranks even smell, touch, or sound in product selection. This aligns with the idea that visual identity drives first impressions and memory. In fact, another research insight indicates people subconsciously judge a product within 90 seconds of seeing it, and up to 90% of that judgment is based on color​.

A signature color, therefore, becomes a mental shortcut to your brand’s identity

Brand loyalty can also be reinforced by color consistency. Customers come to trust and prefer a brand that presents itself the same way across all touchpoints. Color is often the most instantly recognizable element of that consistency. Think of Target’s bullseye logo – even without the name, that bold red circle on white is unmistakably Target. Or Cadbury’s purple wrappers: consumers have such strong associations of that particular purple with Cadbury chocolate that the company fought legal battles in the UK to protect it as a trademarked color for confectionery.

Consistency in color usage doesn’t just aid recognition; it builds trust and signals reliability

As one report noted, presenting a brand consistently (color being a major part of this) across all platforms can increase revenue by 23% on average​ – a testament to the ROI of uniform branding. (exclaimer.com)

Crafting a Distinctive Brand Palette

Choosing brand colors involves understanding both the emotional message of the color and the differentiation it provides in your market space. It’s part art and part science:

• Emotional Alignment: The color must match the brand’s values and the feeling you want customers to get. For example, a company positioning itself on security and trust (like a bank or a cybersecurity firm) will often lean towards blues or dark tones to impart seriousness and dependability. In contrast, a brand about creativity or fun might choose a vibrant purple or orange to signal imagination and energy. The Color Institute™ often works with brands to map their core attributes and key driving emotional response (“innovative,” “joyful,” “creative”) to color families that research shows can evoke those traits. Getting this alignment right means your color will reinforce your brand message at a gut level.
  
• Differentiation: Your brand’s color scheme should help distinguish you from competitors. If every direct competitor is blue, there may be an advantage in doing something completely different – like a bank using red instead. One famous case is T-Mobile’s use of magenta in the telecommunications industry. While Verizon is red and AT&T is blue (formerly yellow), T-Mobile seized upon a bold magenta hue to stand out as a brash, energetic alternative. This distinctive color became so tied to T-Mobile’s identity that the company polices its use by others, even engaging in legal action to defend its magenta trademark for telecom. The result: when consumers see magenta in a mobile phone context, they think T-Mobile. This helped them outpace AT&T as the #2 wireless carrier in the USA. (T-Mobile)
  
• Multiple Color Palettes: Many brands have a primary color and secondary/supporting colors. The primary is the “flag” you plant (like McDonald’s yellow or National Geographic’s yellow border, UPS’s brown). Secondary colors provide flexibility for design, especially in marketing and advertising, but should complement and never overshadow the primary. Successful brand palettes often have one dominant color and a few neutrals or accents. For example, Google’s logo cleverly uses multiple colors (blue, red, yellow, green) to convey diversity and playfulness – yet its brand guidelines ensure those colors are used in specific ways and proportions to keep the look consistent.
  

To illustrate how dominant certain hues are among leading brands, consider this breakdown of the world’s top brand colors:

This table shows blue’s dominance – aligning with its broad appeal and safe connotations – as well as the relative rarity of purple. It doesn’t mean everyone should change to blue; rather, it underscores how color choices tend to cluster by industry convention (tech and finance with blues, luxury with black, food with reds/yellows), and how an uncommon choice can make a brand more memorable if it fits the brand personality.

Case in point: Tiffany & Co.’s “Tiffany Blue.” This delicate turquoise blue (Pantone 1837) is so synonymous with the jewelry brand’s image of exclusivity and elegance that Tiffany & Co trademarked the color. The mere sight of a Tiffany’s robin-egg blue box evokes luxury and excitement in consumers before they even see the product. That’s the power of owning a color. Tiffany Blue isn’t widely used by other jewelers – it differentiates Tiffany and encapsulates the brand’s heritage. When a customer sees that blue box, they instantly know the brand and anticipate a premium experience, demonstrating how color can carry brand equity. Another example: UPS’s Brown (“Pullman Brown”). Brown might seem drab, but UPS turned it into a symbol of dependability. Their tagline was even “What can Brown do for you?”. By consistently painting their trucks and uniforms brown for decades, UPS made an unglamorous color signify a robust, no-nonsense reliability. It set them apart from FedEx’s purple-and-orange and USPS’s blue-and-red. Customers came to recognize a brown delivery truck at first glance as UPS – that is brand recognition built on color.

Brand Color Guidelines and Consistency

Having a defined brand color or palette is only the first step; consistent execution is key. The Color Institute™’s experience shows that brands with strict color guidelines tend to reap the benefits of instant recognition more than those that use colors haphazardly. This means codifying the exact shades (CMYK/RGB/Hex/Pantone values) and using them uniformly across all media – from the logo on your website to your product packaging, retail signage, employee uniforms, and advertising materials.

If you’re interested in our curated color psychology based brand palettes, please explore here.

Ensuring this consistency often means investing in brand guidelines and enforcement. It’s worth it: consistency not only yields that recognition boost we discussed, but it signals professionalism. Studies indicate that brands presenting a unified image are perceived as more credible and dependable. As noted earlier, consistent branding can even translate to revenue growth (23% or more) because customers are clear about who you are and what you stand for​. In contrast, if a company’s logo is sometimes red, sometimes orange depending on where it appears, or if the shade varies, it creates dissonance – the consumer might not even realize those touchpoints belong to the same brand. (exclaimer.com)

Color in branding is about owning a position in the customer’s mind. It compresses your brand’s identity and values into a visual cue that’s faster than words. When chosen thoughtfully and used consistently, a brand’s colors become an emotional signature that drives recognition, trust, and loyalty.

Color in Digital Marketing: Conversions by Design

In the digital realm – websites, mobile apps, online ads, and user interfaces – color choices directly impact user behavior. Unlike static branding, digital marketing allows for rapid testing and iteration of color usage, making it a playground for data-driven color optimization. Smart marketers treat elements like button colors, link colors, and background hues not just as design issues but as variables that can significantly influence click-through rates, conversion rates, and user engagement.

Guiding the User’s Eye and Actions

One of the first lessons in web design and digital advertising is that color draws attention. On a cluttered webpage or social media feed, the right pop of color can direct a viewer’s focus to a call-to-action (CTA) button or an important message. Marketers often use contrasting or complementary colors for CTAs. For example, if your website theme is primarily blue and gray, a bright orange or green “Sign Up Now” button will stand out and potentially be clicked. This isn’t just theory; it’s been tested.

Example – CTA Button Tests: In a widely cited A/B test, HubSpot experimented with the color of a CTA button – one version was green and the other was red. The result? The red button outperformed the green by 21% in conversion rate (more people clicked and completed the desired action)​. The pages were identical except for the button color. Why might red have won? In the context of a mostly green/blue page, the red button likely grabbed more attention through contrast and conveyed a sense of urgency. Also, bringing in the psychology of color, red increases heart rate, pupil dilation and blood pressure – creating a sense of urgency to take physical action. It’s a vivid example of how small color tweaks online can have a big impact on user behavior. However, note that context matters – if the whole page design were different, results could change, which is why testing is key. (HubSpot)

Another famous case from the digital world is Google’s 50 shades of blue experiment. Google notoriously tested dozens of shades of blue for the hyperlinks in Gmail and Google AdSense ads to identify which shade users clicked more. It sounds almost obsessive – but the data paid off. Google found a winner (a purplish-blue that users clicked the most) and implemented it. The reported result was an additional $200 million in annual ad revenue due to increased click-through​s. Yes, you read that right – $200M gained simply by finding the most click-effective color tone for a link. This test has become legend in data-driven design circles and is a case study in the ROI of color optimization. As Google’s UK director remarked, it was a victory of data over design intuition: instead of the highest-paid person’s opinion choosing the link color, they let the experiment decide, and the company reaped massive rewards​. (The Guardian)

These examples underline a crucial point for marketing leaders: color choices in digital interfaces directly affect user decisions. Ignoring this is leaving money on the table. Conversely, strategic use of color in UX design can increase conversion metrics significantly.

User Experience, Accessibility, and Color

While we focus on psychology, it’s worth noting that good color strategy in digital marketing also involves practical considerations like readability and accessibility. High contrast between text and background (dark text on a light background or vice versa) is crucial so that your content is legible to all users, including those with visual impairments. Poor color contrast can reduce engagement because if people struggle to read or see your CTA, they certainly won’t click it. Additionally, approximately 1 in 12 men (and 1 in 200 women) have some form of color blindness. A classic mistake is relying on color alone to convey information, like indicating required form fields in red text – which some users cannot distinguish from green text. Understanding digital marketers ensure that color usage also considers these factors, by using text labels or icons along with color cues, like an asterisk for required fields, not just red labeling.

Mobile vs. Desktop: Color can behave differently on different screens or in different contexts. A bright color that looks great on a big desktop monitor might be overwhelming on a small phone screen – or vice versa, a subtle color might wash out on mobile. Testing your color choices on various devices is part of digital color strategy. Many brands even consider a “dark mode” -version of their color palette now, since so many apps and OS have dark mode. This is what we do! This means ensuring your brand colors still look distinctive against dark backgrounds (a logo might need a light outline or an alternate color to display on black).

E-commerce and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

In e-commerce, color has been shown to influence purchasing decisions in multiple ways:

• Product Presentation: Online shoppers can’t touch products, so visuals are everything. High-quality images with vibrant, true-to-life colors help convey the product’s appeal. If the colors look off (clothes appearing dull or a different shade than in reality), it undermines trust and can lead to returns. Investing in accurate color representation and even showing products in multiple color options with easy toggling can boost sales. A shopper might not have bought that sofa in grey, until they see with one click that it’s also available in a chic royal blue that better fits their style.
  
• Guiding Choices: Websites often use color to guide user behavior, like progress bars (the green progress indicator vs. red warnings during checkout) to push people toward completion. A green check mark or button can subtly say “all good, go ahead,” whereas a red stop icon can indicate errors or “don’t proceed.” These align with ingrained human factors – green means go, red means stop – which in a checkout flow can be quite literal. Amazon, for example, uses an orange “Add to Cart” button – orange is energetic and positive, and it stands out on the mostly white and blue site, nudging you to press it.
  
• Impulse and Emotion: Online, as in physical retail, impulse buys are influenced by color. Research indicates up to 90% of impulse judgments about products can be based on color​. In a split second, as a user scrolls through a product feed, items with colors that evoke the right feeling can make them pause and click. For instance, a food item with rich, warm colors will look more appetizing in a thumbnail image, prompting a click-through, whereas a poorly lit or bland-colored image might be overlooked. The emotional resonance of color translates into clicks and conversions in the digital shelf just as in the supermarket aisle.
  

Data-Driven Color Decisions

The beauty of digital marketing is that it offers immediate feedback and data. Deciders for a brand should encourage their teams to treat color choices as hypotheses to test. A/B testing different color schemes for emails, landing pages, or ad creatives can yield insights into what resonates best with your audience. Maybe your brand guidelines default to a blue banner on your homepage, but a test shows a bold purple banner gets more sign-ups – that’s invaluable data. Sometimes, the results will surprise you and challenge assumptions, like Google’s test did.

However, testing should be done judiciously and within reason – you don’t want to stray wildly off brand for no reason or run so many variants that you confuse your audience. The goal is to optimize within your brand’s personality. For example, if your brand colors are navy and gold, you might test a gold CTA vs. a navy CTA rather than testing a random green that isn’t in your palette. Or test slight variations in brightness/saturation to see if a more vibrant tone performs better. Maintain your identity, but fine-tune it for performance.

One more consideration: seasonal or campaign-specific color tweaks. Digital marketing allows temporary changes that can inject freshness or tie into themes. For instance, around Earth Day, a company might add a green tint or accent to its website to emphasize a sustainability message. Around the holidays, a splash of red and gold might create a festive vibe in ads. These short-term color themes can boost engagement by aligning with what’s top-of-mind for consumers at that time, all while the core brand colors remain present to ensure recognition.

Bottom line: In the digital sphere, color decisions should be as much the domain of the data analyst as the designer. By measuring and iterating, marketing teams can harness color psychology to increase clicks, sign-ups, and sales in a very measurable way. As the Google experiment proved, even a slight hue change can literally be worth millions.

If you’d like to learn more about using the language of color for marketing and advertising copywriting, grab our Color Marketing Cheat Sheet here.

Color in Advertising: Making Campaigns Unforgettable

Advertising – whether print, outdoor, or digital – is where color often takes center stage to create immediate impact. In a split-second glance at a billboard, scrolling past an ad, or flipping through a magazine, color can capture attention, set a mood, and burn a message into memory. Think “that’s why God made a farmer”, “think different” or “taste the rainbow”. Great advertisers have long used color as a storytelling device and a way to ensure their campaigns stand out in a crowded media landscape.

Standing Out in the Sea of Messages

Every day, consumers are bombarded with marketing messages. What makes them stop and notice an ad? Color is frequently a deciding factor. An analysis in marketing communications found that ads in color are read up to 42% more often than the same ads in black and white​. This stat from a study on phone directory ads may seem dated, but the principle remains true in the digital age – a social media post or banner ad with vibrant color likely draws more eyeballs than a grayscale version. (Jan V. White, Color for Impact) 

Color in advertising works on multiple levels:

• Grabbing Attention: Our eyes are drawn to color contrast and intensity. An all-white highway billboard with a giant bright red logo or message is nearly impossible to ignore. Likewise, a predominantly blue newsfeed will make a yellow ad thumbnail pop out. Media planners often purposefully consider the environment – for example, knowing that many websites have white or light backgrounds, an ad with a rich dark background color can stick out like a square peg (in a good way). On a cluttered store shelf, packaging that bucks the color trend of its category can catch the shopper’s eye within those critical 1–2 seconds a product has to get noticed. Tests show a product on a shelf has about 1/20th of a second to catch a customer’s attention, and color can extend that glance by making the item visually distinctive​. (colorcom.com)
  
• Eliciting Emotion & Storytelling: In advertising, color sets the scene and reinforces copy. An ad for a tropical vacation might use lush turquoise waters and green palm imagery to make viewers feel relaxed and enticed; the colors do as much persuasion as the headline “escape to paradise.” On the flip side, a public service announcement about climate change might be deliberately draped in ashy grays or scorching oranges to evoke the seriousness or danger of the issue. The emotional tone of an ad is hugely affected by its color palette. Film posters and movie marketing use this expertly: consider horror movies with their desaturated, bluish tints or thrillers with stark black-red contrasts versus a children’s movie poster awash in rainbow hues. In each case, the color scheme immediately telegraphs the mood.
  
• Brand Reinforcement: Advertising is often as much about brand building as immediate action. Thus, good campaigns incorporate brand colors prominently to reinforce brand identity. Coca-Cola’s holiday ads famously drench the scenery in Coca-Cola red, effectively imprinting the brand into the seasonal mood, to the point that Coke’s campaigns popularized the modern image of Santa Claus in a red suit. FedEx’s ads nearly always feature their purple and orange, making even a generic message instantly recognizable as FedEx’s voice. By using the brand’s signature colors across all advertising, marketers create a cohesive thread – someone glancing at a billboard or a YouTube pre-roll ad can tell whose ad it is just by color treatment, even before they see the logo at the end.
  

Case Studies: Campaigns Where Color Was King

Let’s look at some notable examples of brands and campaigns that leveraged color to powerful effect:

• Heinz “EZ Squirt” Ketchup – Turning Ketchup Green: Perhaps one of the boldest product marketing moves was when Heinz introduced bright green ketchup aimed at kids in 2000. Ketchup had been red for over a century, so this neon green condiment was a visual shock – and an advertising goldmine. Heinz’s marketing around “Blastin’ Green” ketchup played up the fun, slime-like nature of the product, tying into kids’ love of Nickelodeon slime and the movie Shrek. The result: a runaway success. Heinz sold over 10 million bottles in the first 7 months, ultimately more than 25 million bottles of colored ketchup​, representing the highest sales increase in the brand’s history. All because of a simple color change and clever positioning! The ads showed kids drawing with the vividly green ketchup, which instantly differentiated Heinz from boring old red ketchup. The campaign proved that departing from color norms, if done in a brand-appropriate way, can create huge buzz and sales. The novelty eventually wore off by mid-2000s, but not before it cemented itself as a textbook example of using color to rejuvenate a mature product and capture a new generation’s attention. (food52.com)

• Apple’s iMac – The End of “Beige” Computers: In 1998, Apple was a struggling company, bleeding red ink. Then came the launch of the iMac G3 – a desktop computer encased in translucent, candy-colored shells (Bondi blue initially, then tangerine orange, grape, lime, etc.). This was a radical departure in an era when PCs were uniformly beige or gray boxes. Apple’s ads proudly proclaimed, “It doesn’t have to be beige,” directly calling out the sea of dull-colored computers​. The visual impact of seeing a computer in playful blueberry blue or strawberry red was enough to make consumers rethink what a home computer could be. Apple’s colorful iMac campaign not only attracted enormous attention, it helped revive the Apple brand, contributing to turning around $1.8 billion in losses into a trend-setting, profitable business​. The design (by Jony Ive) was supported by advertising that splashed those iMac colors across print and TV, making technology feel friendly and fun. This story shows how strategic use of color in product design and advertising can reposition a brand from stale to cutting-edge. (colorcom.com)

• “Barbie Pink” Takes Over the World (Barbie Movie 2023): In 2023, the marketing campaign for the Barbie movie offered a masterclass in color branding. Barbie’s signature bright pink was leveraged to the hilt. In the run-up to the film’s release, billboards and posters appeared that were simply a solid field of Barbie pink with the movie’s release date – no other text​. This minimalist approach worked because that particular shade of pink is instantly associated with the Barbie brand and doll. The curiosity of seeing a completely pink billboard among the typically busy advertising landscapes made people stop and pay attention, wondering “What’s that pink ad about? Oh – Barbie!” It generated massive social media conversation. The campaign extended to partnerships – from a pink Airbnb Dreamhouse to pink product tie-ins – literally painting the town pink. The commitment was so intense that the film’s production design famously used so much pink paint it caused a supply shortage at the manufacturer​. The result for the marketing campaign was priceless buzz. The pink-centric strategy signaled a fun, self-aware celebration of the Barbie brand, pulling in nostalgia from older audiences and excitement from younger ones. “Barbie pink” essentially became a meme and a cultural moment, all through the power of a single color done consistently. This underscores that if your brand is lucky enough to have an iconic color, doubling down on it in your advertising can create a distinctive, memorable campaign that cuts through the noise. (marcom.com)

If Barbie interests you, please check out our founder Michelle Lewis’ interviews around the Barbie movie – she became the go-to color expert in Mine, Red Lion PR, and ColorCured.

• De Beers “A Diamond is Forever” – and Blue: De Beers’ classic diamond advertisements often feature a rich deep blue background – evoking night sky or eternity – against which the brilliance of a diamond stands out. The color choice of blue in their ads conveys trust, prestige, and the timeless nature of the product…diamonds. It’s a subtle example, but these ads have been enormously effective in romanticizing diamonds. Here, color wasn’t flashy or novel; it was emotionally resonant. The deep blue made viewers feel the weight of tradition and loyalty, aligning perfectly with a campaign about everlasting love.
  
• Fast Food Color Wars: A mention must be made of how fast-food brands have used colors in their visual advertising to whet appetites. McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC and Wendy’s have all heavily used reds and yellows in their store signage, interiors, and ad materials. These colors are proven to stimulate hunger and impulse eating​. For instance, McDonald’s advertising often pairs its golden arches with a vibrant red background. The two colors together (happy yellow + appetite-stimulating red) create a powerful call…making people think of hot fries and a warm meal. Meanwhile, Subway uses green and yellow to imply freshness (green for veggies/health, yellow for a bit of hunger and friendliness). When one brand in an industry shifts color – say a burger chain decides to rebrand in cool blues – it’s an enormous gamble because it breaks the industry norm of leveraging warm hunger-inducing hues. Most don’t stray far because those colors are so tied to quick food gratification in consumers’ minds. The lesson for advertisers is that there are established color conventions that work, and breaking them should be done only with a clear strategic reason.
  

Maximizing Color in Your Campaigns

From these examples, a few principles emerge for leveraging color in advertising:

• Be Bold (within brand reason): Ads are the space to amplify your color usage. If your brand color is green, don’t be shy – flood the background with green, create a visual mood with it. The bravery of Heinz turning ketchup green or Barbie going all-pink shows that boldness can pay off hugely when it aligns with brand identity.
  
• Simplicity and Contrast: Some of the most effective color-centric ads are simple. A single striking color used confidently often beats a rainbow of competing colors. Contrast that single color with neutrals or complements to make text/product pop. For example, Oreo once ran print ads that were basically just their blue brand color as a backdrop, with an Oreo cookie in the middle – minimal text. It stood out in magazines because of its simplicity and strong color identity.
  
• Tell a Story Through Palette: Ensure your ad’s color scheme matches the story or feeling. If you’re advertising a high-end perfume, a palette of rich black and gold or deep jewel tones will tell a luxury story; if it’s a spring sale, fresh pastels might convey renewal and friendliness. The colors should be intentionally chosen like a soundtrack to the ad’s message.
  
• Consistency with Flexibility: If running a campaign across many channels (OOH, digital, print), keep the core color theme consistent so the campaign is recognizable in all contexts. But do allow for medium-specific tweaks. A color might appear differently on a backlit digital screen vs. printed billboard, so adjust saturation if needed to maintain the same impact. The Barbie campaign, for example, maintained that exact shade of pink across everything from huge outdoor installations to Instagram posts, ensuring cumulative impact.
  
• Testing and Localization: Similar to digital, when possible test variations – maybe one version of an ad uses a different background color and see which draws more engagement in a focus group. Also consider local tastes: an ad heavy on white might need a color swap in markets where white is less positive, as discussed earlier. Many global campaigns have slight color variants by region to optimize resonance.
  

Advertising is where color theory meets creativity and commerce directly – a well-colored campaign not only catches eyes but can stir the heart and spur action. It builds mental availability for the brand (people recall the brand/color later when buying) and can become the centerpiece of a brand’s public image.. For brand leaders, ensuring your creative teams and agencies treat color choice as a strategic element – backed by understanding psychology and brand purpose – will elevate your campaigns from good to unforgettable.

If you’d like to learn more about using the language of color for marketing and advertising copywriting, grab our Color Copywriting Workshop here.

Crafting a Winning Color Strategy For Your Brand

We’ve journeyed through the science and art of color in marketing: from psychological foundations and cultural nuances to brand identity, digital optimization, and advertising impact. The evidence is overwhelming that color decisions can profoundly affect consumer behavior: influencing emotions, recall, perception of value, and ultimately the decision to engage or purchase. For c-suite and brand leaders, the mandate is clear: treat color as a strategic priority at every stage of marketing and branding. Here’s how to put these insights into action:

• 1. Start with Research and Insight: Before picking colors arbitrarily, leverage research – both academic findings, audience polling and target market research. Understand your target audience’s preferences and any cultural considerations if you’re global. Use color psychology principles (like those outlined in our signature course, Color Psychology 101) as a starting framework. For instance, if you’re launching a new tech startup aimed at enterprise clients, studies suggest a bias towards blues or cool colors for trust – but also look at competitors to see if you should conform or differentiate. Conduct surveys or focus groups on color schemes and gather feedback on what emotions or qualities people associate with them.
  
• 2. Define Your Core Brand Palette (and Stick to It): Choose a primary brand color, or a set of colors, that embodies your brand’s values and positioning, and then own those colors across all brand touchpoints. Document them in your brand guidelines. This includes specifying Pantone/CMYK/RGB codes to ensure consistency in print and digital. Make sure everyone from your graphic designers to external agencies to your social media managers know and use these consistently. Consistency yields recognition – as we saw, it can boost brand recognition dramatically and even contribute to revenue​. If you undergo a rebrand or brand refresh, carefully evaluate what current equity your existing colors have (sometimes brands refresh logo designs but wisely retain their signature colors to not lose hard-won recognition) and make sure the new colors reflect the emotional evolution of the customer.
  
• 3. Use Color Deliberately in All Marketing Collateral: For every piece of content – a landing page, an email template, a print flyer, a tradeshow booth – ask how your color choices support the goal. Are they drawing attention to the key message or action? Are they reinforcing brand identity? A disciplined approach might be, for example, always making sure your CTA buttons or key sales messages are in your primary brand color or a highly contrasting accent color so they always stand out. Over time, customers will even associate that color with taking action on your site (“the orange button = click to buy”). Additionally, ensure your product packaging and retail displays leverage color to catch the eye and communicate the right positioning.
  
• 4. Leverage Data and Testing: As we’ve discussed, digital marketing is a golden opportunity to test and refine color strategy. A/B test critical UI elements and ad creatives. Monitor metrics like click-through rate, conversion rate, time on page, etc., in relation to color changes. If you find that one color scheme reduces bounce rate on your landing page, incorporate those learnings into your broader design language. Data-driven iteration can fine-tune the emotional and practical impact of your color choices. Just remember to test systematically, one element at a time, to attribute changes correctly. And once you identify a winning approach, socialize that knowledge across your team so it informs future designs. A great software to utilize is OnHue, that enables easy color testing.
  
• 5. Mind the Medium: Adapt your color usage for different channels while keeping core consistency. An email may allow more vibrant color usage than, say, a newspaper ad where print limitations might dull certain fluorescents. Outdoor ads need high contrast because of variable lighting conditions. Digital screens render color with light (RGB) while print uses ink (CMYK) – ensure your brand colors are defined for both and appear as intended. Work with your design team to create alternate versions of logos, light vs dark backgrounds, monochrome versions, so your color branding is flexible but still unmistakable in any context.
  
• 6. Train Your Team in Color Awareness: Not everyone is a designer, but your whole marketing team should be color-conscious marketers. This means sales enablement knows to keep decks on-brand with the right colors, your social media manager picks on-brand color overlays or graphics, your retail teams use the correct paint and materials, etc. Educate them on why it matters; share those stats, like this blog, so they become champions of your color strategy too. When rebranding or launching campaigns, involve stakeholders in brainstorming color usage so they feel ownership and adhere to the plan. (We also recommend getting your team Color Psychology Certified through our Certification Program)
  
• 7. Watch Your Competitors, But Be True to Your Identity: If a competitor suddenly changes their color scheme or a new player enters the market with a disruptive color approach, like a bank using hot pink, evaluate how that impacts the landscape. Do you need to adjust to stand out more, or does it reinforce that your classic color is a differentiator? Sometimes, moments like that are opportunities – if everyone zigged to minimal white/neutrals, common in startups a few years back, zag by using a bold color that others fear to use. The caveat is to ensure it aligns with your brand’s authentic story. Differentiation for its own sake can misfire if it confuses customers. Ideally, your color choices both set you apart and underscore your core message.
  
• 8. Align Color with Emotions in Campaign Planning: When planning any campaign, think in color from the outset. Often campaign concepts come with slogans or visuals, but give color equal weight in brainstorming. If you’re launching a sustainability initiative, green shouldn’t be an afterthought – maybe it floods the campaign. If you want to evoke urgency in an end-of-quarter push, incorporate reds/oranges in the campaign graphics to create that tension. Essentially, use color as an emotional shorthand in your messaging consistently. This helps create cohesion between what people see and what you want them to feel or do. A great start in understanding Color Meanings is our Color Meanings Workshop.
  
• 9. Don’t Forget Packaging and In-Store: For those in product companies, marketing doesn’t end at the ad – it continues onto the shelf and into the unboxing experience. Color can make your packaging jump off the shelf next to competitors as we discussed with shelf impact. It can also enhance the customer experience – for instance, the serene teal of a Tiffany box is as much part of the product as the jewelry itself, because of the emotional joy it brings. Align your packaging design with the broader brand palette, and consider seasonal or limited-edition color variants to create collectability or buzz (like Coca-Cola’s holiday white cans with polar bears, or Nike releasing a popular sneaker in a new colorway to spur fresh sales).
  
• 10. Continuously Re-evaluate and Evolve if Needed: As times change and your brand evolves, be open to refining your color strategy. This doesn’t mean frequent wholesale changes which can dilute brand equity, but subtle shifts. Many legacy brands periodically tweak the exact shade of their color to stay modern (for example, Walmart’s blue logo got a bit brighter and more inviting over the years, and MasterCard moved from bold red-and-orange to slightly softer hues in its rebrand). If your customer base is aging and you want to appeal to a younger demographic, you might infuse a bit more vibrancy or contrast in your visual materials, while still being recognizably you. The key is to base these decisions on research and to rebrand in a way that retains continuity, like when Instagram changed its logo from the old brown camera to the new colorful gradient, they kept a camera glyph shape and transitioned gradually in app design to acclimate users.
  

At the strategic level, investing in color means more than picking pretty designs – it means potentially investing in talent and tools. This includes color research, hiring color experts or consultants for major projects and ensuring print quality management so colors don’t deviate. Some companies even invest in consumer neuroscience studies, like eye-tracking and fMRI to see how consumers respond to package colors! While not every brand needs a lab test for color, thinking of color as an investment with a return will change how you allocate resources to design and brand management. The persuasive case to the C-suite or finance is straightforward: color affects the bottom line. We’ve seen how a color tweak led to $200M for Google​, how consistent use increased revenue by double digits​, how a packaging color change (Heinz) led to millions in new sales​. These are tangible outcomes. So the next time someone calls a branding discussion “fluff,” you can counter with the hard data and case studies showing that color is a subtle, psychological salesforce of its own.

Conclusion: Color as a Strategic Advantage

Color is one of the most cost-effective and high-impact tools in a marketer’s toolkit. It works on a subconscious level to shape perceptions, it can communicate values at a glance, and it significantly influences consumer choices from first look to last purchase. The most successful brands in the world – from Coca-Cola’s steadfast red to Google’s multicolor logo to Barbie’s pink powerhouse – have consciously harnessed color to build their identity and connect with audiences emotionally.

In branding, marketing, and advertising, neglecting color is not an option. Doing it haphazardly is a risk. Doing it strategically is a major competitive advantage. As we’ve explored, an evidence-based approach to color yields stronger brand recognition, higher engagement, and even boosts conversion and sales metrics. Whether you’re designing a logo, optimizing a website, planning an ad campaign, or entering a new international market, think about the colors as seriously as you would think about the words of your message. Both speak volumes, but color speaks to the heart faster.

At the Color Institute™, we’ve seen time and again that when brand leaders champion a thoughtful color strategy, the results follow in customer response and business outcomes. The emotional and psychological resonance of the right color, in the right place, at the right time, can be the difference between a campaign that flounders and one that becomes a cultural touchstone.

So, as you plot your next marketing move, ask yourself: What do we want our audience to feel? What color will help make that happen? Use color deliberately to inspire, persuade, and connect, and your brand will not only be seen – it will be remembered and loved. In the vibrant and ever-changing universe of marketing, the ones who take the time to fully understand and implement color psychology see the most successful businesses.