Ever had this at a party?

I was asked what I did at a party this weekend and went on to try to explain brand to a complete non-believer. This was going to be fun!

To make it easy for me, and him, I found myself turning to colour as a perfect explanation of how brands can be designed to successfully attract a market.

Colour is incredibly important when creating a brand, as it’s one of the principal subliminal tools we have that will help to appeal to our market.

The example I used was that when we look at a brand colour, we should be able to instantly identify with that brand, without even really thinking about it.

Colour is vital in brand positioning, and this is how I was able to capture his attention. If you take the strong primary colours of the spectrum, these are normally associated with the more cost-effective end of a market.

If we take the more subtle complimentary colours, such as purples and oranges, these sit nicely in the middle, and then in the higher end market we’ll see more use of blacks and whites, metallics and shades of colours. Although a complimentary colour, green is often also associated with the higher end of the market.

Now, as an example, this plays out incredibly well in the UK in supermarket brands. If you look at Tesco and Lidl, who operate in the cost-effective end of the market, you’ll see a strong use of primary colours – Red, Blue and Yellow. Sainsbury’s, who sit in the middle market use orange, and at the higher end such as Waitrose and M&S you’ll see blacks, whites and greens.

In essence one glance of a supermarket logo tells us exactly what to expect price wise. And the great news was the non-believer had a EUREKA moment and told me that, “he got it.”

Now this is an incredibly simple way of looking at things, and it is far more complicated than that, but it is paramount to understand each tiny element that helps to building your brand successfully.

If you are having “one of those” conversations, then please feel free to use this as a simple tool to help.

Want to talk brand – please feel free to email me – wayne@createwithimpact.com