Color Use in Merchandising and Advertising

Some Thoughts on Color
by JJ Goodell

It’s quite well known that the color red inspires impulsive buying. Our eyes are drawn to the color like ducks to water. Just walk into any supermarket and look at the color most often used on products. It’s red. The next one is yellow. Both colors tend to raise your blood pressure just a tad and dilate your pupils. They cause excitement, which goes to prove one thing: color affects us.

The Science of Color
For a long time, color has been used by both advertiser and merchandiser to encourage us (the consumer) to take action (purchase the product or service). In fact, the use of color in advertising and merchandising has become somewhat of a science unto itself.

Sometimes a color is selected for the sole purpose of drawing attention to the product or ad. This is when red or yellow may be used. But you can also attract attention by using a combination of colors. For instance, Stagg® Chili uses a black background with gold letters. The cereal product, Total®, creates eye-catching appeal with a blue package and a red logo.

Color can also be used to relate to a particular product or service. Consider the Green Giant® products. Their packages are set in a white background with the famous green logo. Healthy Choice® is another example of using green. Both products are trying to emulate freshness or healthfulness. Green does the job. Root beer is sold, using packages created in brown shades. A&W® is a perfect example, which uses brown and orange.

Designers & Color
Designers often select colors to bring life to an otherwise dull advertisement. Sometimes those colors selected by a designer aren’t necessary based on any real scientific choice, just as a judgment call. But when push comes to shove, the designer can usually give you a reason why he or she selected one color over another.

Red=Buy It

Just like the color red is used in signs to grab your attention, red is also used in merchandising for the same reason. Although for signs the attention is mainly danger or stop, the color red in the market is used to captivate or attention and draw us to that product. Red is the most popular color used in merchandising because of its bright captivating power. The brand Coca Cola is a good example of a company that snatched the color red and uses its power to reel in the buyers. Coca Cola also uses another popular color in its add. They use a small yellow line to accent the white curve that goes across the ads. The white lettering placed upon the all-bright red background with a thin yellow accent causes the product logo to stand out against other ads that are duller. This marketing strategy is important for all companies if they want their product to sell.

Red=Stop

Colors are used all around us in many different ways and for many different reasons. They are used to draw our attention to the product or the situation. There are many uses of different colors that merchandisers use to encourage people to react and buy the products. Colors are also used in everyday signs for different purposes. Bold bright colors like red are used in the sign world to portray stop. The Stop sign itself went through many changes until it gained its red with white letters to signify STOP universally. At first the stop sign was white with black, yellow with black, and then finally it was agreed that since red is the universal “stop” color used on all traffic signals that the stop sign itself should be red.