How Does Packaging Color Impact Marketing

What impact does color have on sales in product packaging design?

Color can stimulate people's vision in the first place, affect consumers' psychology, and thus promote product circulation. A good package should have good visual effects. The primary task of packaging design is to catch the attention of consumers. In modern society, people's living standards are improving day by day. Countless products are flooding the shelves of supermarkets. Data show that if consumers cannot find what they are looking for within 6 seconds, they will turn to another target. Therefore, in a very short time, the color of the packaging can attract consumers' attention and affect consumers' psychological changes. The unique color of packaging design can stimulate consumers' sensory organs, thus attracting consumers' attention and making them interested in the product.

?Color is an integral part of packaging， here’s a comprehensive guide to choosing packaging colors.

Packaging Color Psychology

Different hues impact human behavior and emotions in many ways. A person’s reaction to a particular color is triggered involuntarily and driven by psychology.

For example, lighter colors tend to make packaging seem less serious; black adds sophistication to any package; gray or brown makes packaging conservative or masculine; pink adds a feminine touch, while red demands attention.

White?Color

Attributes: Simple, pure, clean

Brands: Apple, Dove, Himalaya Babycare

White is a packaging color commonly used to convey simplicity, safety, and tradition in a product. For instance, Apple always emphasizes the simplicity of their devices, and all their iPhone or iPad packaging is white. White is often complemented with other colors to either enhance or alter the perception.

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Black

Attributes: Sophisticated, powerful, authoritative

Brands: Zara, Coach

Black is often used for high-end products, as the colour conveys a sense of luxury. It evokes class and elegance. Like white or grey, black can also be accented with other colours. Metallic golds or silvers printed on a matte black packaging create an expensive look.

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Blue

Attribute: strength, honesty, dependable, harmony, tranquility

Brands: Ford, Gillette, Pepsi

In terms of product packaging, blue is one of the safest colors to use, regardless of the age or gender of your potential customers. Before you go ahead and use blue, you need to think about your target audience. In general, darker shades of blue appeal to an older audience, while lighter or brighter hues do well with a younger crowd.

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Red

Attributes: excitement, passion, power

Brands: Coca-Cola, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Nescafe

The color red can represent many things. Darker shades are associated with luxury and professional products, while lighter shades are associated with fun, energetic products but may be perceived as having lower market value. Often times, gold or silver accents can help to elevate the perceived value.

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Green

Attribute：Safety, growth, harmony

Brand：Subway， Green tea

Green has always been a primary color for products that are environmentally friendly, natural or healthy/organic. Similar to red, while darker greens are often associated with more luxurious products and more muted tones are used for products related to safety or nourishment.

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Orange

Attributes: Fun, adventure, friendly

Brands: Fanta, Sunny D, Payless Shoe Source

Psychologically, the color orange is associated with adventure, extroversion, confidence, and optimism. However, different shades of orange have different connotations. Orange is a tricky color to use, but if done well, it can do wonders for your brand.

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Yellow

Attributes: Fun, optimism, energy ?

Brands: McDonalds, Sun Chips, Amul, Lego

In packaging, the color yellow signifies originality, creativity, and fun. Yellow packaging is often targeted towards children and young adults. It’s a great choice for products designed to make people happy.

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Turquoise

Attributes: Calm, clear, pure

Brands: Tiffany

Turquoise is a color of calm. It connotes a clear mind. Turquoise is an excellent color choice for health-related products or even cleaning products, since it connotes cleansing and purity.

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Purple

Attributes: Indulgent, luxury, spiritual Brands: Cadbury, Hallmark. Purple is used by food brands to appear more indulgent rather than a necessity. Holistic products also use purple packaging as it is associated with individuality and imagination. Purple with gold or silver accents can add a sense of exclusivity and high quality.

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Pink

Attributes: calming, beauty, femininity

Brands: Barbie, Victoria's Secret

Pink is non-threatening and calming. It is associated with empathy, sincerity, and beauty. Lighter shades of pink are often used in packaging for products aimed at women. However, darker shades of pink or when combined with darker colors, pink represents power and sophistication. Muted and grayed-out pinks appeal to an older market, while bright neon pinks appeal to teenagers.

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Packaging Colors by Industry*

Food and Beverage

Red has universal acceptance in food packaging. Green is used for healthy and natural foods, while yellow is used for high-energy serotonin-inducing products. Orange is associated with healthy, filling foods, such as oatmeal; while blue is used for fun foods, such as cakes or cookies.

Cosmetics

Cosmetics packaging traditionally uses pink and blue hues. As expected, pink packaging targets the female consumer, while blue is used for both male and female sub-segments. Cosmetics packaging also utilizes black and white. Charcoal-infused products often use gray or black packaging. White packaging, on the other hand, is used for baby products or products that contain milk extracts.

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Packaging Colors by Industry*

Retail

In retail packaging, the color often depends on the product and the brand. In other cases, colors associated with the brand are used. For example, the detergent product Tide has packaging that is predominantly orange, a color that is part of the brand identity. Canon uses red and white in its retail packaging for cameras and printers. Casio uses distinctly different colors for its retail watch packaging. They use blue for their less expensive lines, black for their more expensive lines, white for women's watches, and gray for their vintage line.

Electronics

The colors used in electronics packaging often depend on the brand's image or message -- there is no set color.

For example, Microsoft uses white, gray, or black packaging for its Surface devices to convey simplicity and power. Apple also uses white packaging. Motorola uses brighter colors in their phone packaging. And Logitech uses their signature shade of green.

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How to Choose the Right Packaging Color

Consumer behavior tells us that consumers are influenced by packaging color. Here are a few things to keep in mind when choosing the perfect hue for your product packaging.

1. Consider the buyer: Your packaging color should resonate with your target market. Get to know their needs, their motivations, their buyer persona. What’s their age, gender, income level, education level? For example, McDonald’s classic red and yellow represents energy and youthfulness which resonates with their target audience.

2. Represent the product: Sometimes, you want your packaging to tell the consumer what’s inside. For example, the color of a shampoo bottle may give the buyer a hint about the product’s ingredients.

3. Stand out from the competition: You don’t want your product to blend into the shelves; you want it to stand out. By choosing a color that’s unique or different from your competitors, you’re more likely to get noticed and remembered. For example, leading soda companies Coca-Cola and Pepsi use the primary colors red and blue, respectively, on their packaging.

4. Communicate the product’s purpose: The color should subconsciously communicate the message you want to convey to the buyer. Do you want them to perceive the product as delightful or soothing? Is the product related to health or safety? Does it evoke a sense of luxury or sophistication? For example, Apple’s classic white makes their products look premium.

5. Remember your brand: Don’t miss the chance to communicate your brand voice. Your brand story should seamlessly translate through your packaging colors and design. Do you want to express the quality of your organization? Is your brand professional, fun or rebellious? For example, while most other mobile service providers opted for shades of black, blue, and red, T-mobile decided to go with a shocking pink logo — making them different and bold.

6. Consider cultural preferences: Colors have additional cultural implications. Understand the culture and traditions of your consumers to come up with color combinations For instance, the color red in China represents good luck.

7. Keep consistency with design and typography: Your colors should blend well with the design of your packaging as well as the typography you choose. While this may seem obvious, it doesn’t take much to get too creative and go overboard. The typography you choose also sends a message to the buyer, and the colors should resonate that message.

8. Stick to your core brand colors: While it’s great to experiment when you’re packaging new products, you must maintain color consistency and brand identity. This means that your brand should be recognizable to consumers irrespective of the packaging or colors you use. For instance, when Maaza came out with new packaging for their bottles, they still stuck to their traditional yellow and red.

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