Impact of colors on Consumer behaviour

Executive SummaryFor this research, we chose to focus on qualitative research as compared to quantitative since, the topic of research was abstract and quantitative tools would have not added much value to the research. There were a lot of challenges while conducting this research since it dealt with the latent psychology of individual consumers and thus some were not being able to articulate how they related colours to brands and products but a number of them provided insightful comments. We also noticed that colour perception of an individual was dependent upon personal experiences and choice and thus, was difficult to translate and relate them to a specific feeling. However, there exist various universal feelings towards certain primary colours which are used by marketers and brand managers to communicate their brand message to their consumers.

Our research methodology included

Observation Interviews Focus Groups Projective Techniques

We have covered all of the above by conducting controlled experiments, field research in retail stores, in-depth interviews and projective techniques by a fun activity. Our approach was to ask a lot of direct and in-direct questions in order to understand how each individual perceives the colours and look out for the common patterns to come with interesting insights.

We focused on colours used in packaging of FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) since the use of colours and the impact is maximum here. The colours on the packaging attracts the consumers to take it off from the retail shelves. We have also looked at a small category of consumer durables. The categories researched are:

Instant Noodles Breakfast Cereals Soft Drinks Toothpaste

Detergent Mobile Phones Two wheeler Four Wheeler

During our research we came to know that colours are strongly used by brands to create a unique identity for themselves and sometimes that may transcend into an entry barrier as well. According to our research certain primary reasons of colour usage by brands is to:

Create a brand identity. Colour aids the consumer to recognize it without even reading what is written on its packaging

Communicate brand message. The colour a company uses to brand itself conveys how trustworthy they are to consumers, the quality of their products, and much more.

Target Primary consumers. Marketers choose specific colours for their brands based upon the preference of their primary target consumers. For example, if the target consumers are women, then soft colours such as pink or purple are chosen since women tend to like softer colours. Similarly in case of children (who are more visually motivated) like very bright colours such as green and yellow.

Projective TechniqueExperiment: A small group of 24 with 8 females and 16 males and an average age of 24 were asked to do the following as a fun activity:

“Imagine you are the brand manager of an instant noodles product and your job is to zero-in on the packaging of your product. With the resources provided to you, design the packaging which you have in mind for your product”

Individuals were provided with pencils, sketch pens, crayons and pens as resources to design their own packaging for instant noodles. No mention of colour was done since we wanted them to instinctively pick up the colours that they had in mind without the subjects giving much thought to it.

Results: The subjects came up with interesting and fun designs. The point to be noted here is that most of them chose their primary packaging colours as red and yellow. Green was also a colour people chose who designed for organic noodles

Insights: The results indicate a strong presence of “Maggi” as a brand in the minds of consumers. This is a case of generic trademark case where the brand has established itself so strongly that the brand has become synonymous with the product itself and thus the consumers relate so strongly to Maggi’s colours. Now, for other brands this is a huge entry barrier. Since the consumers now relate yellow and red with instant Noodles the marketers have to package their product similarly or they would have to take a risk to differentiate their product with a different colour and create their own perception in the minds of the consumers.

The colour green also stood out. Some of the individuals chose to market organic instant noodles with the colour green, green and yellow was also seen as a combination which indicates that people associate green with organic and healthy food. Thus if one wants to project an instant noodles as healthy, the colour green would be a good aid.

Challenges: Individuals were not experts in designing, few people focused more on the tag lines and left the packaging colour blank, some of them used too many colours and no single colour was prominent.

Primary Research: Retail StoresMethodology: In order to understand the consumer purchasing behaviour, we visited a retail store in Bhubaneswar. We chose retail store as a part of our research since this is the place where the main buying decisions are taken by the consumers, the point of actual sales. We interviewed around 11 consumers with the age group ranging from 20-55 and the store manager regarding any consumer buying patterns he noticed and the product sales of the selected categories.

In this research we chose mainly three categories which include:

Tea Detergent

Instant Noodles

For all the consumers we interviewed, we asked them the following questions for the above categories:

Q1. Which product would you choose and why? Q2. If no brand names are given then only based on packaging which one would you choose? Does the colour of the packet have anything to do with it?

Q3. If you have to decide a particular colour for this product's packaging what it would be? Give Reason

TEA

Results:

In case of tea most of the respondents picked “Tata Tea” as their first choice followed by “Red Label” and “Taj Mahal”. When asked the first answer was “tastes good” which then slowly boiled down to the brand and the trust they have in it. Most of the consumers had been sticking to the same brand over the years and had hardly experimented. When asked about the packaging maximum consumers preferred Green since they felt that it connects with the colour of tea leaves and also gives out a feeling of being healthy and eco-friendly. One of the customers mentioned red since the tea when it is made is the colour of red and thus connected more with Red Label as a brand. However, Blue was not chosen by anyone as their choice of packaging.

Insights: Upon interviewing the store manager, we found out that Tate tea was the most fast moving product in Tea category whereas Taj Mahal was slow which corroborated the fact that the average consumers connected more with Tata Tea’s green packaging. Since Taj Mahal is positioned as the “Hazaaron mein ek Chai” which is for the luxury seeking consumer which explains its blue packaging ( From the survey we found that a lot of people associate Royal and luxury with Blue) , it is slow moving.

INSTANT NOODLES

Results: As in the case of the projective technique, the consumers at the retail stores too had the colour Yellow associated strongly with Instant Noodles. It was interesting to note that local offerings for instant noodles had similar themes of Maggi in case of colour. Most of the consumers chose Knorr and Top Ramen as their favourites and all most everyone mentioned this was due to the absence of Maggi on the shelves. Everyone mentioned that yellow is an attractive colour however a lady aged 55 mentioned that “Colors doesn’t impact her buying behaviour and that she will only buy after looking at the brand.”

Insights: Maggi which targeted mostly children chose yellow as its primary colour which attracted a no of people and became an instant hit. One of the consumers also mentioned that since the colour of noodles is yellow, the packaging should also be yellow which is not the always the case. It simply reiterates the brand Maggi and its impact on People. Chings Noodles was successfully able to distinguish itself by its White and red combination of packaging which stood out and this may be the reason that in the absence of Maggi, Chings was slowly catching the speed in retail stores according the Store Manager.

DETERGENT

Results: Most consumers picked surf excel as their favourite which was also corroborated by the store manager. People related to surf excel’s blue colour. Consumers somehow associated he colour blue with clean and foam. One of the consumers mentioned that they liked sulf excel matic’s pink and blue colour since women mostly like or associate with these colours. Blue was unanimously selected as the colour for detergents.

Insights: In this case we gained insight regarding gender biased packaging. Most of the detergents had colours of pink , blue which were the colour preferences of women. Consumers also talked about the bink and blue granules that are present in Surf Excel’s packet. Thus marketers not only use colours in the packaging but are also incorporating it in their products.

Challenges:

Upon the first instance the consumers mostly talked about the brands rather than the colours. They found it difficult to choose a product just based on the colour of the packaging which tells us that the brands also play a role in popularising/ personifying certain colours and not just the other way round.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE

Methodology: We prepared a questionnaire and distributed it to certain individuals of different age groups and asked them to associate certain colours with feeling and emotions. Conversely, we mentioned certain emotions and feelings and asked them to associate those with various colours they could think of.

Also, we provided them with six categories of packaged goods and asked their preference with regards to the corresponding colour. The categories were:

Mobile phone Breakfast Cereals Soft Drinks Instant Noodles

Toothpaste

Colour Association Study:

We mentioned the following words to the respondents and they came up with the colour they associated the feeling or emotion with. The colours that were most associated with the feelings have been tabulated below:

Anger RedDeath BlackLove RedLife GreenMasculinity BlueHappiness YellowInnocence WhiteFemininity PinkLuxury violetFriendliness OrangeCleanliness WhiteFamily Green &

blueBeauty PinkPassion RedPeacefulness White

Packaged Goods Colour Research

Respondents were asked to choose colour(s) to show their preference for the various goods. Category wise results have been depicted in bar charts below:

Black Brown Red Green Yellow Violet Blue Orange Pink Grey White05

101520253035404550 46

1 2 3 1 36

30

714

Mobile Phone

Insight: The most preferred colour for mobile phones has come out to be black followed by white. People generally associate these two colours with luxury and status. Also, white means simplicity for a lot of people.

Black Brown Red Green Yellow Violet Blue Orange Pink Grey White0

5

10

15

20

25

30

0

24

36

23

2 3

11

1 1

12

Breakfast Cereals

Insight: For breakfast cereals, people prefer brown and yellow more which gives them a sense of wholesome food.

Black Brown Red Green Yellow Violet Blue Orange Pink Grey White0

5

10

15

20

25

30

25

58 7

31

8

19

1 1

7

Soft Drinks

Insight: Soft drinks have been black and orange as most preferred.

Black Brown Red Green Yellow Violet Blue Orange Pink Grey White05

10152025303540

1 2

16

73

0

14

1 14

37

Toothpaste

Black Brown Red Green Yellow Violet Blue Orange Pink Grey White0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

0 04 4

40

0 04

02

8

Instant Noodles

Insight: For instant noodles, people prefer yellow most which gives them a feel of maggi.

Black Brown Red Green Yellow Violet Blue Orange Pink Grey White0

5

10

15

20

25

30

3530

4

9

3 25

20

30

13

20

Four Wheelers

Black Brown Red Green Yellow Violet Blue Orange Pink Grey White0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

4034

3

9

35

710

24

12

6

Two Wheelers

ACTION RESEARCHMethodology: 6 coloured glasses filled with the same cold-drink were kept in a circle to avoid biasedness and five coloured packets of same variety of chips. The participants were asked to taste each of the cold drinks and chips simultaneously to prevent the same taste from being recognized.

Chips Colour Experiment

Results: Most of the subjects responded that the chips from the red packaging tasted the best followed by blue. People described the taste as spicy and tangy whereas the brown and pink packets were the least favourite. Most of the people described it as having bland taste. During the experiment, it was observed that most subjects picked up the red and yellow first. These colours were bright due to which many of them were attracted to them as compared to softer colours such as pink or earthy colour of brown.

Insights: In case of chips, the colour of the packaging also tells the consumer about the flavour it is associated with it. Most of the people chose red and associated the taste tangy and spicy with chips. Red is also the most attractive colour and makes a bold statement which is why the top selling chips brands have red as their packaging.

As the "happiest" colour, yellow indicates cheerfulness and optimism and general good feelings. On top of that it is attractive and catches the eye also. During our research using the questionnaire approach, the colour that people most associated with happy was yellow. Given that eating is an emotional experience—satisfaction, happiness, comfort—food marketers capitalize on yellow’s feel-good power and use it liberally in branding

Brown and Pink on the other hand do not relate to any particular flavours of the snack nor do they make a strong association with the product. However surprising the customer with a differentiating colour (researched) might lead to a happy outcome for the marketer.

Challenges: A number of people found the taste to be similar in all cases, some people were not able to articulate why they picked up a particular packet.

Soft-drink Colour Experiment

10

8

4

2

Best Taste

Red & BlueRedOrangeyellow

10

6

6

2

Worst Taste

greenyellowwhiteblue

Results: Out of the 6 glasses, the glass with the blue and red stripes was preferred the most followed by the red glass. The least preferred glass turned out to be green followed by yellow.

Insights: On being asked the reason for picking up the red & blue striped glass first most number of times and also the most preferred one, the respondents mentioned that it reminded them of Pepsi and the red one of coca-cola. Surprisingly, the drink that we used was not Pepsi, but Coke.

Conclusion Colour is ubiquitous and is a source of information. People make up their minds within 90 seconds of their initial interactions with either people or products. About 62‐90 percent of the assessment is based on colours alone. So, prudent use of colours can contribute not only to differentiating products from competitors, but also to influencing moods and feelings – positively or negatively – and therefore, to attitude towards certain products. Given that our moods and feelings are unstable and that colours play roles in forming attitude, it is important that managers understand the importance of colours in marketing.

We have limited our research to consumer goods but colours exist in all spheres and this research can be extended to other categories as well.

Colours evoke different feeling in different people and marketers need to understand this and recognise which colours are in or trending; for example the neon colours are in trend. There was a time when marketers would never have thought of marketing such colours. The ones that take a risk stand the chance of becoming the trendsetters.

Appendix

Interview Questionnaire:

1. Which colour(s) do you like the most?BlackBrownRed GreenYellowVioletBlueOrangePinkGreyWhite

2. What word(s) comes to mind when you think of these colours?BlackBrownRed GreenYellowVioletBlueOrangePinkGreyWhite

3. Which colours would you use to identify the mentioned attributed-AngerDeathLoveLifeManlyHappinessInnocenceFemininityLuxuryFriendlyCleanFamilyBeautifulPassionCheerful/ Joy

Peaceful

4. If you had to buy the following, which colour(s) would you choose?

Black Brown Red Green Yellow

Violet Blue Orange Pink Grey

Mobile phoneBreakfastCerealsSoft DrinksInstant NoodlesToothpaste

Participants involved in the various experiments:

Referenceshttp://research-methodology.net/influence-of-colour-of-clothing-products-on-consumer-buyer-behaviour/

http://udel.edu/~rworley/e412/Psyc_of_color_final_paper.pdf

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