Red: love, passion, and excitement. Green: calmness, growth, and harmony. Black: strength and sophistication. These are just a few examples of how colour evokes emotion and influences perception. Colour has the power to create stress or tranquillity simply by being seen. Across cultures, colours carry unique symbolic, historical, and emotional weight, but just how significant is their impact in the world of marketing?
The Psychology of Colour in Marketing
Colour plays a crucial role in marketing and brand identity, helping businesses create lasting impressions and emotional connections with consumers. The vibrancy, saturation, and combination of colours can shape moods, drive behaviours, and even influence purchasing decisions. This is the foundation of colour psychology, a principle that marketers have leveraged for decades.
According to Adobe, colour influences up to 90% of a consumer’s initial perception of a product. In a competitive market, the right colour choices can determine whether a consumer engages with a brand or moves on. This is why brands carefully curate their palettes to evoke specific emotions, align with their identity and stand out from the pack.
Colour and Brand Recognition
Colour consistency is essential for building a strong brand identity and recall. When you think of red, brands like Coca-Cola and Netflix immediately come to mind. From an ALTER Agency perspective, our client, TCL, strategically champions red to capture attention and convey authority and innovation. Yellow? Think McDonalds and Snapchat and for ALTER, our client, Zumba, who’s vibrant yellow logo projects energy, positivity and motivation. And then there’s blue which is widely associated with credibility and trust seen in brands like IBM, Facebook, and numerous financial institutions.
Colour Trends and Cultural Influence
Each year, Pantone selects a colour from their library that they feel expresses the “global mood and an attitude”. This year, they named ‘Mocha Mousse’ the colour of 2025, stating ‘it nurtures us with its suggestion of the delectable qualities of chocolate and coffee, answering our desire for comfort”. Whereas 2024 saw ‘Peach Fuzz’ as colour of the year which according to Pantone “bridges the youthful with the timeless.’’
These colour trends shape industries far and wide, from fashion and interior design to product colourways, packaging, branding, and marketing strategies.
Choosing the Right Colour for Your Brand
Beyond just selection, maintaining colour consistency across all platforms - social media, websites, events, packaging, and advertising - is essential for reinforcing brand authority and recognition. Studies from Cambridge University suggest that red, yellow, and orange are the most attention-grabbing colours on websites, but ultimately there’s no single ‘best’ colour for marketing.
What matters is how effectively a brand’s colour choices align with its identity and objectives. Whether aiming for trust, excitement, luxury, or creativity, brands must ensure their colours evoke the right emotions and behaviours from their target audience.
In a world where first impressions matter, colour isn’t just decoration, it’s a powerful marketing tool. When used strategically, it can make the difference between a forgettable encounter and a lasting connection.
The Creative Team at Alter would be happy to discuss all areas of branding and colour. Please contact us at: hello@alter-agency.com