With Valentine’s Day around the corner, you might be looking for a special outfit for the big night. According to research from the University of Rochester, you might want to whip out that little red dress.
The study concluded wearing red makes men feel more amorous toward women. Andrew Elliot is one of the psychology professors who worked on the experiment.
“It’s only recently that psychologists and researchers in other disciplines have been looking closely and systematically at the relationship between colour and behaviour. Much is known about colour physics and colour physiology, but very little about colour psychology,” Elliot wrote in his report. “It’s fascinating to find that something as ubiquitous as colour can be having an effect on our behaviour without our awareness.”
Advertisers and marketing experts study the effect colour can have on our shopping habits. With around 10 thousand advertisements bombarding consumers daily, messages are engineered to stand out of the mess and grab the attention of their target audience – and colour plays a big role.
Shelley Rinehart, marketing professor at the University of New Brunswick Saint John, said colour has a significant impact on how people perceive the value of a product or service.
“Our perception is that expensive things come in dark or glittery packaging,” said Rinehart. “We use all kinds of things to create an image in the mind of the consumer and colour is one of them.”
Rinehart gave an example of how the same coffee being placed in different colour containers changed how people rated the quality in a blind test.
“The coffee that was in the red container was perceived to be strong, blue container was mild, the brown container was rich and the yellow container was weak.”
Colours can give the illusion an item is worth more or is of better quality because of the way our minds perceive them.
Red is usually associated with action or boldness, white denotes purity and colours like green are associated with growth and health – each colour has a perceived emotion attached to it.
Reinhart said when something is more serious or there is more risk involved, colour becomes less important.
“The higher the risk of a decision for a consumer the more interested they are in text as opposed to pictures; they are more interested in content,” said Reinhart.
But with lower involvement purchases, consumers are more interested in peripheral cues like flashy, colourful advertisements.
“If you look at an advertisement for ‘don’t drink and drive,’ life insurance, or a bank, they’re pretty flat colour-wise; but if you at an advertisement for gum, soda, or liquor, it’s all colour.”
Not only does colour have a part to play in how people perceive advertisements, but it has a role to play in the way people view companies.
Heather MacLean, Chief Marketing Officer of TaylorMade Solutions and Communications professor at St. Thomas, is currently redoing the colour pallet for her company.
The colour of her logo is royal blue and red, but she wants potential clients to view her brand in a different way.
“Blue is always the colour of trust and red was about action, and I’ve had that for many years, but I’m looking to do a refresh – I’m going with a lighter solid colour blue, it’s all about trust for me and my business,” she said.
Companies that intend to advertise or branch out into foreign markets need to know how colours are perceived in different geographical locations – for MacLean’s company, the change to all blue will help her.
“It’s the most universal colour that, across the board, is seen as the same thing,” said MacLean. “If I were going work with clients outside of the country, they’re going to see blue the same way we see it here.”
