What Do Colors Tell Us About an Industry? [Infographic and Interview]

We’ve published an infographic and a ranking about neuromarketing before, but we’d never seen what first appeared to be a combination infographic and ranking like this one.

That was until Builtvisible’s Edna Oliveros cued us to the fact that it wasn’t a ranking, but more of a spectrum, along which fall some of the most popular brand colors used by the World’s Biggest Public Companies. Thanks to market- and industry-specific research from experts at Towergate Insurance, we are now able to see brand color distributions across the logos of some of the top 20 brands from 26 global industries: that’s an analysis of 520 company logos! Enthralled by what this may tell us about the emotional response certain industries want from their consumers, we sat across the screen from Edna and asked her a couple questions about the big takeaways her infographic might lend us as students of marketing. Check out the infographic first and then our interview below for our Q&A.

Interview

BMD: Who were you hoping to reach most with Colour in Branding?

EO: We want to reach people from the marketing industry in general with an interest in neuromarketing and marketing science. Also, we would like to bring this knowledge to people who actively work in creative pieces, so they can develop better concepts.

BMD: What is the main takeaway you’d want online marketing educators and learners to have from this infographic specifically, and Builtvisible more generally?

EO: As mentioned previously, we would like people to identify tendencies and understand the marketing logic of different industries. This research and marketing exercise considers each industry and highlights some coincidences that hopefully will guide designers, marketers and business owners to develop better logos according with their sectors.

BMD: Could you offer any explanation as to why certain industries show more or less brand color differentiation than others in order to rank among the Top 20? For instance, industries like Specialized Chemicals, Home Improvement, and Broadcasting and Cable seem to have more color differentiation in branding than say, Restaurants, Apparel and Accessories, or Banking. Could such differentiation have anything to do with the perceived complexity of the products being marketed within each industry? Or perhaps it’s just the newness or oldness of the industry, with old timer businesses in the industry having had their pick of primary colors early on, while newcomer businesses are forced to differentiate themselves, dichromatically or otherwise, later on? Or perhaps the explanation is more psychological since a lot of roads tend to lead back to neuromarketing?

EO: It depends on all factors. As the infographic explains, if you look at the food and beverage sectors, their logos are more visible and show more energy. These companies interact daily with people. However, banks and airlines should be reliable and offer confidence to its clients. These qualities are represented in the blue colour. We are not 100% sure if this tendency is balanced and applies to all companies, but that is what the chart evidences.

However, a brand logo depends of the owners of each company because they are the ones who decide what they really want to communicate.

Thanks for the infographic and interview, Edna!

If you have any additional questions for BestMarketingDegrees.org or Edna, drop us a line at j.r.jacksonian@gmail.com