Companies are overlooking the importance of the color selection process. In today’s competitive market, every decision made must be for a purpose in order to stand out amongst competitors.

Packaging colors are no exception since it’s the first thing consumers will register in their brains as they browse the shelves.
Packaging colors essentially serve as the first impression of the brand. This will dictate the judgments consumers will make. Here, this could work for or against companies. Similarly to human interaction where people are more likely to be warm and open towards others who make good first impressions, shoppers will do the same with the products that attract them.

The main challenge is figuring out how to create the company’s desired first impression. In order to do so, one must consider the following:

Context
Target consumer
Brand personality

Context
Most articles will only cover the basics of color psychology with branding (such as white communicates purity). However, it’s critical for companies to consider the context of the industry before assuming that the color a company selects will register synonymously for consumers. For example, while brown can give off a warm and comforting feeling when packaging chocolate, it can give off a rugged feel when packaging mens’ aftershave. Be mindful that the color will give off a different psychological emotion depending on the context.

Target consumer
The best marketing plans all revolve around truly understanding the target market and what they want. Begin by creating a profile of the target consumers. There are multiple ways to go about this, but a simple way is to picture them demographically (such as gender, income, culture, age, etc.) What attracts a young teenage girl with a babysitting income will likely vary greatly compared to a gentleman in his 50s with a 6-figure salary.

Brand personality
As mentioned in the previous blog, brand personality is critical to perfect in order to stand out in the market. A company’s color choice should relate to its logo and reflect their desired image to customers. Companies should determine the purpose of their product and what kind of message they want to send. Examples of this include professional, luxurious, affordable, etc. This is more important than trying to align with the stereotypical colors in the industry.