Branding The Meaning of Colour Around the World – Global Branding Elizabeth Holloway Branding 10 mins read Jul 29, 2024 The Meaning of Colour Around the World - Global Branding - Elizabeth Holloway It might seem like a small detail, but choosing the right colour palette for your branding takes careful consideration. Colour is an effective non-verbal cue that conjures distinct associations to emotions, values and personality. These associations have a strong influence over both consumer perception and decisions. Something important to keep in mind is that colour associations are not universal across all audiences. Every culture perceives colour differently. When developing your brand globalization strategy, you’ll want to be aware of these distinct cultural associations or your colour choices might be working at cross purposes with your brand’s values and messaging. Colour psychology and brand identity When it comes to first impressions, colour does a lot of the heavy lifting, with up to 90% of initial impressions coming from colour. Our unconscious associations to different colours can be used to reinforce brand values, personality and messaging. Say for example that you want to convey warmth and empathy as your core brand personality, you might choose yellow or orange as the predominant colours of your branding. Similarly, black is almost universally synonymous with luxury. By aligning your colour palette with your core brand values, you ensure that your visual branding is working in lockstep with your messaging for more influential consumer impressions. Colour psychology is also an important factor in brand localization. How we perceive colour and what it evokes is a deeply nuanced subject, and cultural norms have a strong influence. You might choose a colour for its positive associations only to find out that to certain audiences it symbolizes grief or death. Being aware of potential negative associations with your colour palette will help you manage consumer perception more effectively. Colour and brand credibility Colour trends are always changing. What’s hot today might look old and dated six months from now. Staying informed about colour trends in different regions allows brands to appear current and relevant. The more relevant your brand is, the more credible it will be among consumers. Refreshing your brand’s colour palette can help you stay on trend without needing to completely overhaul your branding guidelines and strategy. The power of colour in global branding A lot of thought and study has gone into understanding how colour choices influence purchasing decisions. Consumers rely heavily on visual cues when evaluating products and brands, especially in content-rich environments like social media. Facts about the influence of colour on purchasing behaviour: Up to 90% of an initial impression comes from colour Colour can increase brand loyalty by 80% 93% of consumers rely on visual appearance when considering new products Colour influences 85% of consumer purchases—and 90% of impulse purchases When used effectively, your colour choices help create feelings that translate into sales. Cultural understanding of colour around the world On a fundamental level, colour provides a framework for understanding our environment. Red signifies hot, while blue signifies cold. Yellow is for caution, and orange is for hazards. Or colours can represent moods and emotions. These are like cheat codes, or shorthand, that convey information instantaneously. And while it’s useful to rely on these cues, they may not carry the desired meaning in every market. To give you some context on how the meaning of colour can differ around the world, here are some examples: Yellow is commonly associated with warmth, happiness and optimism, but in some cultures it can be associated with death, grief, jealousy or pornography. Orange is commonly associated with confidence, friendliness and creativity, but in some cultures it can be associated with wealth, mourning, courage or good health. Red is commonly associated with passion, love and energy, but in some cultures it can be associated with marriage, Sundays, the New Year or mourning. Purple is commonly associated with wisdom, wealth and imagination, but in some cultures it can be associated with death and grief or honour and courage. Blue is commonly associated with trust, loyalty and security, but in some cultures it can be associated with heaven, spirituality, melancholy or good health. Green is commonly associated with health, growth and nature, but in some cultures it can be associated with eternal life, independence or infidelity. Black is commonly associated with luxury, sophistication and power, but in some cultures it can be associated with good luck, rebirth, royalty or maturity. White is commonly associated with innocence, purity, cleanliness and simplicity, but in some cultures it can be associated with mourning, death, fertility, or enlightenment. As you can see, every colour has wildly different meanings depending on where in the world you happen to be. How to use your colour palette effectively Humans are diverse and incredibly contradictory. It’s rare that we agree on anything and that can have big impacts on your marketing strategy. Take for example the colour yellow. In many cultures this is a happy, joyful colour, but in China it’s associated with pornography and in Latin cultures it can represent death and mourning. So, it’s easy to see how colour can convey meaning counter to your brand messaging. There are contradictory connotations for every colour in the rainbow. If you’re wondering what effective use of colour in brand localization looks like, we can turn to Sesame Street’s Big Bird who has different coloured cousins in global versions of the show. While anyone who grew up in North America will be familiar with Big Bird’s signature yellow plumage, there are other colours that better signify friendliness and joy for different audiences. A world of colour meanings While colours are subconsciously tied to emotions and states of mind, they’re also context specific. You’ll find as you dive more into this topic that the psychology of colour can get pretty granular. That’s why you can have colours with negative connotations in your brand colour palette without conveying those negative emotions to your audience. To better explain just what we mean, we’ve broken down what different colours mean in different contexts. Red Red is a vivid, high-impact colour. In everyday life, it’s used to signal “stop” or “danger”. It also represents positive emotions like passion and excitement, or negative emotions like anger or pain. In the context of branding and marketing, red is an eye-catching colour synonymous with playful, youthful and modern personalities. It will frequently be used to create a sense of urgency around timed sales offers or last-minute campaigns. Call-to-action buttons will often be in red because the high contrast pulls the eye towards it. Note: if your audience is predominantly male, you should avoid red in your branding as red-green colorblindness is much more common in men. Around the world, red has strong cultural significance. In India, women wear red henna on their hands and red powder called sindoor along their hairlines when they get married. While in Chinese culture, red is worn on the New Year. Red also signifies death or mourning in both South Africa and Turkey. Blue One of the most popular colours, blue is a perennial favourite colour around the world. It conveys trust, security and reliability. Blue has also been found to foster feelings of calm, making it an obvious choice for wall colour in spaces like waiting rooms where nerves might otherwise tend to fray. Businesses that want to evoke communication, reliability or wellbeing as core values will favour blue in their branding. You’ll see lots of blue in the tech industry, but also in banking and other financial institutions, as well as pharmaceutical companies. Many cultures view blue as a masculine colour, but in China it evokes femininity. It’s also a colour that holds significance in many religions, such as Catholicism, Judaism and Hinduism. Yellow Yellow is the go-to colour for high visibility. That’s why most high-vis clothing is yellow. It’s also synonymous with joy, happiness and sunshine. In nature, yellow reminds us of golden fields of wheat swaying in the wind, or of sunflowers. This colour is a good option for youth-targeting businesses as it conveys affordability, youthful energy and optimism. It’s also a useful colour for instilling warmth in your audience. Another interesting impact of the colour yellow is that it can stimulate hunger, which is why you’ll frequently see it in the food industry. There are some conflicting meanings you’ll want to avoid with certain segments of global audiences. In Germany, yellow is closely associated with jealousy and envy. Meanwhile, in much of Latin America, the colour represents death and mourning. Green With the rise in global awareness of climate change and the need for sustainability, there’s been a big uptick in the use of green in branding and marketing materials. More traditional associations with the colour include health, new life, money and growth. These days, green is synonymous with eco friendly or sustainable products and practices. Brands like Whole Foods also use the colour to signify their reputation for fresh, high-quality produce. One caveat is that consumers have grown wide to greenwashing, so be sure if you’re using green to imply your brand is eco friendly that you have the evidence to back it up. Around the world, green most commonly signifies life or vitality. Mexico uses green in their flag to symbolize independence after they gained their freedom from Spain. And in China, it is considered taboo for men to wear green hats as this suggests that the man’s wife has been unfaithful. Black Even if you’re not a part of the “but-does-it-come-in-black” club, black is a colour you will find virtually everywhere. It has a lot of different connotations depending on the context, ranging from grief and mourning to luxury, power and sophistication. There isn’t a luxury brand out there that doesn’t incorporate black into its branding in some capacity. Both fashion powerhouses and high-tech companies employ black to great effect. Think Uber Black as the luxury ride-sharing option, or the iconic black credit card for the elite consumer who can afford to spend without limit. If your brand colour palette has a lot of bright and vivid colours, using black accents is a great way to create contrast while avoiding looking garish. White White is another colour that is impossible to avoid. Like black, it is often used as a true neutral because you can pair it effectively with any and every colour. Some common meanings include cleanliness, innocence, purity, and simplicity. In many Western cultures, white is the colour normally worn by women on their wedding day. White is an effective choice if you’re looking to keep your branding clean and simple. Brands like Apple have been quite successful using white to evoke innovation and ease of use. If you’re in a very technical industry, using white in your branding colour palette can help you avoid leaving consumers feeling overwhelmed by the details. It should be noted that while white has a lot of positive meanings, that isn’t always the case. In Japan, white is a colour reserved for death and mourning. Likewise, in China it is the colour customarily worn at funerals. It can also represent bad luck. What’s the takeaway? Whether you’re planning a refresh or looking to localize your branding for a global audience, the psychology of colour can give you powerful insights into the unconscious perceptions that influence consumer decision making. Choosing the right colour for your branding can subtly reinforce your brand’s values and messaging, ensuring you make a strong first impression on your target audience. Ready to start using colour theory in your branding and marketing campaigns? We can help you use the power of colour to influence consumer impressions and buying decisions to ensure that your brand visuals align with your core values and messaging. 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