NeuroRelay

What does color really mean to your customer, or how does color affect consumer behavior? Colors can have a powerful psychological effect, and there is a strong connection between color and feelings. Color can evoke emotions and therefore it can change our behavior too (a red sports car can create feelings of excitement, or a blue sea can create feelings of calmness). This is also supported by science, as color addresses one of our basic neurological needs for stimulation. Color triggers very specific responses in the brain and in the whole body (red raises blood pressure and heart rates, while blue lowers blood pressure, pulse, and respiration rates). For marketers, color differentiates the brand, suggests emotional benefits and can be a key to a brand’s identity.

For retailers, shopping is the art of persuasion. Though there are many factors that influence how and what consumers buy. However, a great deal is decided by visual cues, the strongest and most persuasive color.

Color and Marketing
When marketing new products it is crucial to consider that consumers place visual appearance and color above other factors when shopping (1% sound / smell, 6% texture, 93% visual appearance).

• 85% of shoppers place color as a primary reason for why they buy a particular product.

Color and Branding
Color increases brand recognition by 80%. Brand recognition directly links to consumer confidence.

Color and Consumer
Color is one of the most powerful methods of design. However, it is not entirely universal (colors that entice in North America are different from those that entice in India). The following colors affect online shoppers in North America:

• Yellow: optimistic and youthful; often used to grab attention of window shoppers
• Red: energy; increases heart rate; creates urgency; often seen in clearance sales
• Blue: creates the sensational of trust and security; often seen with banks and businesses
• Green: associated with wealthy; the easiest color for the eyes to process; used to relax in stories
• Orange: aggressive; creates a call to action: subscribe, buy or sell
• Pink: romantic and feminine; used to market products to woman and young girls
• Black: powerful and sleek; used to market luxury products
• Purple: used to soothe and calm; often seen in beauty or anti-aging products

Color also has the unique ability to attract specific types of shoppers and change behavior.

Venue	Type of shopper it attracts	Color
Fast food, Outlet malls, Clearance sales	Impulse shoppers	red, orange, black, royal blue
Banks, Larger Department Stores	Shoppers on a budget	navy blue, teal
Clothing Stores	Traditional buyers	pink sky blue, rose

Of course, there are other items that influence the decision such as design, buzz words and convenience.

Overall Design
For many online shoppers, poor website navigability and poor overall design is the reason why they choose not to purchase from a particular website (42%) and not return again to that website because of overall aesthetics (52%).

Time
Speed, efficiency and convenience are one of many reasons why shoppers are returning to internet retailers. Having a website that runs even 5 seconds slower than your competitors could lead to a huge economics loss (64% online shoppers do not purchase items because the website was too slow. Amazon.com found that with every 100 ms of load time, there was a 1% decrease in sales).

Power Words
Retailers rely on the ability for words to evoke emotions in consumers. The right ‘power’ word could be the difference between a consumer purchasing an identical item at one retail shop over the other.

• 52% of consumers are more likely to enter a store if there is a sales sign in the window
• 60% of consumers feel at ease and are more likely to buy a product that has the word ‘guaranteed‘ associated with it