Color is enough to grasp the user's emotions

Different colors have different effects on emotional guidance. This article reveals the potential and magic of color in marketing, how to cleverly use color to stimulate users' emotional resonance, enhance brand awareness and attractiveness, and thus achieve more effective marketing strategies.

As trends such as Barbie pink, Fendi yellow, grey, dopamine dressing, and Maillard color continue to attract attention on social media, brands have begun to explore the marketing potential hidden behind colors. These colors not only stimulate people's emotions, but also become the source of emotional healing and pleasure for consumers, and have become the focus of heated discussion among the public.

Brands have keenly captured this communication element and have used color marketing to touch consumers' deep emotional needs, stimulate dopamine secretion, and produce positive chemical reactions such as happiness and pleasure.

01 Color marketing, everywhere

In recent years, the application of color marketing has been extremely extensive and can be said to be everywhere.

For example, before the release of the movie "Barbie", the film company launched a pink billboard. The large area of ​​pink + the time preview of the movie's premiere made "Barbie"'s outdoor billboards and promotional posters quickly become popular on social media, forming a communication material with great visual impact, which was well-known both at home and abroad and brought unexpected communication effects.

For example, new tea brands such as Heytea, Luckin Coffee, and Bawang Chaji, in order to achieve visual appeal in marketing and break the convention to create a more pleasant consumer experience, have launched new products with seasonal limited colors and richer colors in terms of product color matching; in terms of marketing gameplay, they have achieved packaging renewal through joint promotion, allowing more eye-catching packaging to attract traffic to the brand, and creating new topics and discussions to achieve traffic explosion.

During the Spring Festival, the Chinese red color can be seen everywhere, which not only symbolizes good luck, happiness, and prosperity, but also creates a more pleasant and joyful festival atmosphere. In addition to decorating the streets and alleys of the city, it warms every Chinese son and daughter and makes the festival atmosphere more intense. On the Internet, the homepage of almost all apps has turned red, which is festive and auspicious.

From online to offline stores, from movie watching, travel to daily consumption, the brand targets important communication nodes and uses clever marketing methods to successfully grasp the emotions of users with colors. It is the braver color expression that has gained discussion and popularity. The boundary-breaking marketing design is unique in experience and expression, which increases the vitality and appeal of marketing.

What marketing codes are hidden in color marketing?

02 The marketing code of using color to grasp user emotions

Colors can have strong emotional effects. Different colors will bring different psychological cues to people. For example, highly saturated red and yellow can convey happy and positive emotions, while soft colors such as light pink and white can bring people warmth and healing.

In recent years, color marketing can be said to have blossomed in all aspects and has been used in film and television communication, new tea beverage marketing, and color marketing in industries such as tourism and food is also common. They are all trying to create pleasant emotions and visual experiences to attract consumers and stimulate their deep needs, allowing color marketing to play a more effective role.

Behind the fact that brands are using colors to stimulate users' emotions, there is actually a marketing logic behind it.

03 Use dopamine to deal with negative emotions and achieve emotional healing

In daily life and work, there are always disappointments. These negative emotions may cause people to feel frustrated and powerless, and depression and lying down have become one of the ways for young people to laugh at themselves and deal with negative emotions. Bright colors can stimulate the brain to release dopamine, bring happiness and satisfaction, and help young people get rid of the unhappiness and powerlessness in real life. They continue to be popular on social media. To the extent that contemporary color marketing has become a popular cultural phenomenon.

Color marketing is also seen as the tip of the iceberg of emotional marketing. On Xiaohongshu, there are more than 2.76 million notes about "dopamine", which shows that color marketing that leverages traffic still has market dividends, can heal and influence people's emotions to varying degrees, and bring coveted traffic and attention to brands.

04 Use color as a tool to stimulate user consumption

Some people say that when real life is not satisfactory, people want to go back to the carefree era in the past, such as childhood and school days. This nostalgic emotion has a strong market potential. Many brands have taken advantage of this and try to use memorable colors and events to evoke the collective memory of a generation, thereby stimulating consumers' desire to buy.

Color now plays an important role in brand marketing. Specific colors are often closely associated with specific times, events or emotions, and can quickly trigger people's memories and emotional resonance. For example, brands often use black and white colors and brushed images to create a retro feel, which is strongly associated with consumers' past good memories, evoking consumers' memories of a certain period, thereby enhancing users' recognition and favorability of the brand.

05 Form a visual hammer and accumulate long-term brand assets

In today's world where everything is marketing, strong visual elements can often fully mobilize people's sensory experience, and the visual elements here can be pictures, sounds, images, colors, etc. In the long-term accumulation and dissemination, they gradually become the representative and symbol of brand characteristics and values, and can accurately convey the core values ​​and characteristics of the brand. The visual hammer, and color marketing naturally accumulates brand assets with recognition and visual impact.

When visual elements become the unique logo of a brand, they can help consumers quickly identify the brand among many brands. For example, during the Chinese New Year, people always look forward to an auspicious year, which also indicates that the coming year will be smooth. When it is associated with red, there is a sense of festivity, so that "Celebrate an auspicious year, drink red can Wanglaoji" forms a visual and taste element with a sense of picture and recognition, and in the long-term accumulation, it forms an effective visual hammer and settles into a long-term asset of the brand.

06 Use color to create viral marketing and bring users closer

The popularity of dopamine outfits and Maillard colors on the Internet allows neurotransmitters related to happiness and satisfaction to stimulate the brain to release dopamine, which makes people feel happier and more excited when they see these bright and lively colors, which triggers stronger emotional resonance and desire to share. And those colors that can bring excitement to users will also turn the audience into marketing communicators, spreading their attention and love to more people, forming a phenomenal spread with a viral effect.

The herd mentality allows one phenomenon to drive another, making hot topics on the Internet more and more popular. When forwarding and following the trend form a new situation, it becomes an important tool for users to socialize and expand their circle of friends. It also makes color marketing a medium of communication between brands and users, narrowing the distance between the two.

Final Thoughts

Color marketing is considered a new marketing trend in 2024. It can meet consumers' emotional needs for healing and relieving negative emotions, allowing brands to spread through social media using colors, creating nostalgic emotions to stimulate consumption, and precipitating and forming brand assets. In future marketing activities, it is worth looking forward to what user experience and brand value brands can create by using color marketing.

Author: Mr. Bingfa; WeChat public account: Marketing Bingfa