Colors have the power to influence human emotions, which is why a clear blue sky makes you happy and green grass in a park makes you feel refreshed. Pizza Hut, KFC, and McDonalds use red color in their logos to stimulate hunger. Similarly, Prada, Chanel and other luxury brands use gold, silver, white, and black to convey the feeling of sophistication.
According to a research by Department of Administrative Studies, University of Winnipeg, Canada, people decide within 90 seconds of interaction, whether to buy a product or not. 62-90 percent of this decision is based on colors. Businesses incorporate color psychology, the study on the power of colors on human mind, to product label designing. The reason behind is – product label is one of the key marketing elements besides quality and pricing.
While deciding the colors for product label, marketers need to be clear about the type of emotions that want to evoke in the target audience. For example, if your brand and product reflect optimism, go for light yellow. If you want to give people a feeling of relaxation, comfort, and spirituality, the label should be light blue in color.
Every color has an emotion attached to it and it’s up to you how you utilize the power of the color. If you believe that the current label isn’t in sync with what your brand or the product is all about – give the label a makeover.
It’s not just about the main color of the label, but the background, contrast and several other things that you need to take care of while designing a label. Here are a few suggestions:
- Choosing the right combination for the text and background colors can be confusing but if you follow the basic guidelines of color theory, it will no longer be a tough task. Contrast is the key to successfully pair the text and the background color. There should be a contrast between dark and light and remember that greater the contrast, more visible and attractive will be the text. Also, readers don’t have to strain their eyes to read text when the contrast is increased. An easy way to do this is to pair a dark color from the bottom half of the color wheel and team it up with a light color on the top.
- Insure that colors reflect your brand image. Sticking to a color theme and designing labels according to it will also make it easy for customers to recognize the brand and take a buying decision.
- If your product is environmentally safe or in other terms, eco-friendly, why not color the label green? Colors are powerful tools for conveying specific characteristics of a product.
When planning a product labeling, it’s essential to take into account how people interpret color. You have to decide the kind of emotion you want the brand to convey. Choose the label colors wisely and half of your marketing job is done.
Summary:
Colors play an important role in marketing a product. Be it label, logo, or packaging, make sure that colors that you choose reflect your brand, make customers connect to the product emotionally, and contribute to better sales.
