News
Checkout: What really meets the eye
The colors we all see and their untapped power
November 2, 2008
Most displays work from a limited color palette, and for very good reasons - costs, logo design, branding being some. Using a limited color palette is a reasonable thing to do, but did you know that the human eye and brain can correctly see only six colors?"Correctly see?"
There are six colors that most human beings - regardless of cultural background, age, gender, education, income level or any other demographic marker - can correctly identify without hesitation or error. These colors are black, white, red, yellow, green and blue. You look at blue and I look at blue and we'll agree it's blue. You look at chartreuse and I look at chartreuse and ... well, could you pick it out if I showed it to you right now?
This doesn't mean you can't have a color palette broader than those six, but it does mean you should use other colors wisely. We know from the sciences of color phenomenology and cultural psychology that, even though most everyone can correctly identify these six colors, each color means something different based on culture, age, gender, education and so on.
Color by gender
For instance, women prefer mild color contrasts and paler colors in ads. Want to really get the attention of female shoppers?Have a female from your target demographic highlighted and centered in the middle of the display. She can be in "natural" light and everything else shadowed just a shade or two darker. Want to drive home a message that she should purchase a specific product? Make sure that product - regardless of where it appears in the display - is shown in the same natural light as your subject.
Men want stronger colors, and vibrant contrasts are effective in making sure the stronger colors lead the consumer's eye from the male subject to the product. Men also will respond to specific color schemes for specific purposes. Want to promote health? Use red and yellow shadings with yellow closest to the subject. Promoting financial security? Use blues with paler shadings at the bottom and richer shadings at the top and again, surround your subject with "natural" light.
"Natural light?"
Yellow is the only color of the six listed that the eye will recognize as both soothing and enlivening.
The color (regardless of the viewer's age, gender, culture, etc.) is both the most comfortable and most enlivening color as experienced by the human psyche. It is universally recognized as gracious and loving, because it is the color of the sun and is considered "natural" light. Our eyes are designed to detect it most quickly and most easily.
Use yellow to signal offers, trust and acceptance of information or advice.
Using colors to force actions
Ever seen a magician tell someone to pick a card, any card? It looks like the mark is picking a card at random, correct?
Not really. Good magicians, con artists and marketers know that you can prime people to take certain actions without their realizing it.Magicians doing card tricks call this "forcing the card." Good marketing and advertising designers can force consumers to take specific actions by priming them with colors.
Want to give customers several choices and have them choose only one? Force the desired choice by coloring it just a shade or two different from the rest or by highlighting it with yellow. People might not intuitively want to make the primed choice, but that natural, yellow light is designed to draw them to it like a bee to honey.
Every retailer can use color to his advantage with just a little knowledge of how the human brain responds to them. If you use the six main colors for most displays and leave the others for logos, etc., and target consumers with gender-based color schemes, you'll be on the right track to using color
effectively in your operation.
Joseph Carrabis is chairman and chief research officer at NextStage Evolution LLC and NextStage Global LTD. He can be reached atjcarrabis@nextstagevolution.com |  |
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