Unlocking Brand Potential with Colour Psychology

Standing out for the right reasons as a business is no mean feat. Marketplaces are crowded and incredibly noisy these days, so even shouting the loudest doesn't work very well anymore. But we have lots of little tricks up our sleeves for elevating your brand.

One tool we employ when looking for competitive advantage at MAJOR is Colour Space Analysis, a fascinating exercise that offers a visual cue to where your brand fits within the competitive landscape. This simple but effective process, part of our comprehensive discovery phase, involves mapping your competitors' brand colours and logos onto a colour wheel to uncover commonalities and gaps. By identifying patterns, we can pinpoint opportunities for your brand to either stand out or align with market norms.

The Power of Colour in Branding

Colour is more than just a visual element; it carries psychological weight and can significantly influence consumer perceptions and behaviours. When executed thoughtfully, a brand's colour palette can evoke specific emotions, communicate values, and reinforce brand identity. Conversely, an ill-chosen colour scheme can alienate your target audience or blend into the background of a saturated market.

Mapping the Competitive Landscape

Our Colour Space Analysis begins by selecting five to eight key competitors within your market. We then plot their brand colours and logos onto a colour wheel. This visual tool helps us see where competitors cluster and where there are gaps. Commonly, industries gravitate towards specific colour palettes---think tech companies favouring blues and greens or the fashion industry's penchant for blacks and whites.

Revealing Insights

The insights gained from Colour Space Analysis can be profound. Here are some scenarios we might encounter:

Crowded Colour Spaces: If your competitors are all using similar hues, there's an opportunity to differentiate your brand with a contrasting colour. For example, if the market is saturated with blue, a bold move to the opposite side of the colour wheel could be a simple strategy to help set you apart.
Gaps in the Colour Spectrum: If your competitors don't tend to cluster, identifying unclaimed spaces on the colour wheel can highlight opportunities to ensure you position your brand uniquely. This strategy works especially well when the unclaimed colour aligns with your brand's values and messaging.
Cultural Significance: Colours hold different meanings across cultures. Red might signify good luck in China but danger in Western contexts. Our analysis takes these nuances into account, ensuring your brand resonates globally or within specific markets.

It's not an exact science, and there are obvious caveats. It's essential to consider your brand's history and the psychological impact of colours. A heritage brand may be incredibly risk-averse when it comes to deviating from its established palette. For example, a luxury brand might undermine its perceived value by switching from metallics to playful pastels.

The Broader Journey

While Colour Space Analysis is a powerful tool, it's one small (but cool) piece of the branding puzzle. It builds in value when integrated into a broader strategy that considers brand heritage, cultural expectations, and market positioning. This is why we involve the voice of the customer at all stages of our projects, ensuring nothing is left to assumption. This human-centred approach ensures that any changes to your colour scheme are not only visually distinct but also align with your brand's core values and market aspirations.

Case in Point

Consider a recent project where we worked with a high-tech manufacturing company. The industry was dominated by blues and blacks, probably because they signal trust and reliability. Our Colour Space Analysis revealed a gap in warmer hues. After careful consideration of the brand's ethos and market positioning, we slightly adjusted their core blue colour, and introduced a bold, energising orange as the core accent colour. This choice not only distinguished the brand visually but also communicated innovation and approachability, key attributes for a tech company looking to rise up in the market.

Conclusion

Colour Space Analysis is a fun, simple, and insightful exercise that can really aid in guiding strategic decisions in brand positioning. By understanding the competitive landscape through the lens of colour, we can uncover opportunities to differentiate your brand in meaningful ways. At MAJOR, we blend creative flair with technical expertise to ensure your brand's visual identity is not only unique but also deeply resonant with your audience.

Embark on this journey with us, and let's transform your brand's visual presence together.