Colours and Branding: When colour becomes an identity

Why is the role of colour so important in branding and brand identity?

Colours signify a lot and connect with the target audience. The choice of colour therefore varies according to the product and the category in which the brand is positioned.

Every colour has some meaning and represents something. Blue is generally associated with trust, stability and reliability. Green can represent growth, freshness and prosperity. Red can talk about energy, excitement and power, while orange can bring in energy, warmth and optimism.

But these are not hard and fast rules. The meaning of a colour can change depending on the category, the brand and the way it is used.

There are brands which are easily related with a particular colour and the consumer is able to associate with it quickly. The red of Airtel, for example, immediately rings a bell in the consumer's mind. You see the red and the brand comes to you. That is when colour starts becoming an important part of brand identity.

How Do You Choose a Colour?

So, how do you go about choosing a colour for your brand? What are the criteria?

Do you also conduct research as to what colour suits your product?

Research can certainly help you understand what different colours communicate to consumers and what kind of response they evoke. But choosing a brand colour is not always based on research alone.

Sometimes you choose a colour based on a hunch.

A marketer may simply feel that a particular colour is right for the brand and what it wants to communicate. Experience, understanding of the consumer and instinct can all play a role in arriving at that decision.

Ultimately, the colour has to fit the brand and its personality.

The Category Has Its Own Colours

Colours are also determined by the category of the product.

Over a period of time, every category develops certain colour codes. In BFSI, for example, blue and green are used extensively. They bring in positive feelings around trust, stability, growth and prosperity.

This makes sense for a category where the consumer is looking for security and confidence.

But there is also a problem. If everyone in the category uses similar colours, then the brand can begin to look like everybody else.

This is where the choice of colour becomes more interesting.

Stand Out From the Clutter

In FMCG, colour can play a very important role because of the battle for shelf space.

Walk into a supermarket and you will see hundreds of products competing for the consumer's attention. The packaging has only a few seconds to catch the eye. Colour can therefore become an important way of breaking the clutter.

Sometimes you may choose a colour because it is appropriate to the category. At other times, you may deliberately choose something different because you want the brand to stand out.

But standing out cannot be the only objective. The colour must also have a reason to exist. It should connect with the product, the consumer and the larger brand identity.

When Colour Becomes the Creative Idea

There is another interesting dimension to colour.

When colours are creatively expressed, they can give a completely new dimension to a brand and its identity.

We all know that when you think of paints, it is all about colours. It is almost impossible to separate the two. But what becomes interesting is how a brand can take this natural association and turn it into a creative expression.

Take Asian Paints and its recent Onam communication. On the occasion of Onam, the brand beautifully leveraged the power of colour to wish its audiences a Happy Onam. Rather than treating colour merely as something that appears in its advertising, the brand used colours creatively to express the festive spirit.

That is when colour becomes more than a visual element.

It becomes a language.

And when a brand can use something that is already strongly associated with it and turn it into a creative idea, it adds another dimension to the brand identity. The consumer is not just seeing colours. The consumer is seeing the brand's association with colours being expressed in a relevant and meaningful way.

This is perhaps where the real power of colour lies. It can start as a visual choice, become a brand identifier and eventually become a creative asset for the brand.

Think Long Term

Finally, colours mean a lot and the selection should have a good logic behind it, with a long-term vision.

It should not be a decision based simply on what someone likes or what looks attractive at a particular point in time.

A brand colour, once established, can become an important part of the brand's memory structure. Consumers begin to recognise and associate the colour with the brand. That is why changing colours later can sometimes mean losing an important part of the identity that has been built over the years.

So, when choosing a colour, you need to look at several things: the product, the category, the target audience, the competition, the brand personality and, most importantly, where you want the brand to be in the long run.

Colour may look like a simple element of branding. But it can do much more than make a brand look attractive.

It can communicate.

It can differentiate.

It can create recall.

And when used creatively, it can even become an idea in itself.

Sometimes, you don't need to say the brand name. The colour can say it for you.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not in any way represent the views of exchange4media.com.