Name Awards

The Branding Blues

Occasionally, finding the right name for your company is the easy part.  Branding can be an incredibly tricky minefield to negotiate, especially for the perfectionist, and the company logo is certainly no exception.  You might initially consider the color of the logo to be unimportant but there are many experts who would fervently disagree.

An excellent example of why color matters is the recent Coca-Cola strategy.  For the first time in 125 years, Coca-Cola decided to change the color of their cans from red to white as part of a temporary and seasonal marketing campaign in the US.  Making the most of their iconic Christmas polar bear image, Coke launched the cans in October 2011 and planned to run them until February 2012.  Public uproar, for a variety of reasons, saw the plan come to an abrupt and premature end.  Coke was even accused by the Twitterati of changing the recipe and it wasn’t long before the red cans were back on shelves.

So what should we take into consideration when choosing the color?

Science And Psychology

Colors are meaningful to people, fact.  Green is eco-friendly, red is danger or passion, pink is more girl and blue is more boy.  Just some very obvious illustrations of a few of the associations we instinctively make through color.  Here are several other examples of this based on the analysis of marketing experts and strategists on the way we formulate opinions on colors:

YELLOW

We associate yellow mainly with sunshine, warmth and happiness.  It is frequently used in combination with the color red, bringing together the warmth and happiness of the yellow with the strength and energy of the red – DHL postal service, for example. MasterCard and Shell Oil are two other strong examples of this combination.

GREEN

Green is the color of grass and leaves and we therefore link it heavily with nature and an earthy freshness.  By visual association alone it tells us a company or organization cares about us and our planet – even if on further investigation that appears less likely.  The recycling logo, the universal symbol for Greenpeace, BP and Starbucks are all heavy on the color green.

BLUE

You don’t have to look much further than the emergency services’ uniforms to realize that blue is the color of trust and reliability.  Manufacturers of computer software and their parts (IBM, Intel, Microsoft) rely on our trust and, in turn, rely predominantly on this color to win it.

RED

Red is the color of strength, energy and vitality as well as speed, danger and passion.  Because it covers such a wide variety of associations it’s an incredibly popular logo color which makes it almost impossible to stand out against competitors.

PINK

Pink is one of the colors that seems to be constantly evolving.  Its natural leaning is toward feminine associations and is often used with perfumes and cosmetics.  Historically more masculine brands have avoided the color due to its adoption by the gay community but recent times have seen it go beyond that, particularly with the youth market.  Companies such as T-Mobile are leading the way with their bold use of the color which while vibrant and striking isn’t visually overpowering.

Color Blind

So you can see just how strongly consumers can associate with logos and their colors, which makes it important to get it right.  A US consumer study carried out by the University of Loyola, Maryland found that the color of a brand or logo increased visual product association by up to eighty percent.  When done properly it can bring a whole different feel to your business or product and even stand you out from the competition.

Choose a color that represents the aims of your product or service and where possible use a completely contrasting color to that of your leading competitor.  If appropriate, mix a number of colors to reflect variety, similarly to Ebay and Google.  If you’re exporting internationally, consider how other cultures interpret the meaning of colors and do your research to avoid giving the wrong impression.  Last but by no means least, consider how the colors will work right across the board – from letter headers and uniforms through to web design and packaging.  Don’t be blinded by all the options but rather embrace all the possibilities.

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Lily Porter is a writer and researcher living in London. Her work allows her to cover many different fields from eCommerce to high end retail, including writing for the buggy brand iCandy. In her spare time she likes to spend time with her young family and play badminton.

Tags: Branding, Images, Logos