The Influence Color Has on Buying Preferences

“Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak”- Rachel Zoe

Clothing items serve a higher purpose than just covering and protecting a human body. Instead it acts a decoration of one’s body and it makes a statement without uttering a word. However when it comes to style, preferences do play a huge role in determining that of a unique individual. This is why colour used in advertising and that of the clothing itself, is very important as different colours have their respective influences on different age groups. This is why colours in marketing need to be relevant to the age group at hand.

This research task will focus on analysing the influence that colour has on buying preferences, specifically that of the fashion industry of individuals aged 16-25 years.

The population group of this task will only include individuals who earn salaries and/or allowances i.e. have the privilege of choosing and paying for their own fashion items. The research used to complete this task includes both primary and secondary research in order to come to a necessary and accurate conclusion.

The primary research data that ought to be collected will be done in the form of questionnaire surveys, where pertinent questions will be asked in order to collect sufficient data to assist in analysing the research question. 50 individuals, both male and female, from the specified age group will be surveyed in order to obtain useful information. Any secondary information will be obtained from existing sources such as reliable student websites with accurate information and books written on topics relevant to completing this task. The aim of the secondary research is to collect relevant data in order for it to be used as an aid in answering the initial question of this research task.

The focus of the outcome of this task can be used in order to influence fashion sales businesses make due to their marketing techniques and fashion colours used in their advertising campaigns. Hopefully, this research task will shed some light on the aspect of effective marketing for new and potential businesses specifically those of the fashion industry. The use of relative primary and secondary research together should result in a potentially informative and enlightening report.

Literature Review

There are various articles and literature that show how colour has an impact on the human brain, emotions and how that ultimately leads to the actions of the consumer. The articles below all show how colour is used effectively in advertising as well as the emotion the respective colours evoke in clothing store customers.

The article posted by tandfonline.com talks about how congruity of colours used on an online website changes the attitudes of the customers. The authors also state that gaining customer attention and generating favourable attitudes are two very important advertising objectives. The experiments that they conducted were done in order to see how congruity, banner colour and text colour affected the attitudes of the customer towards the business and website. Incongruity has a better effect on recall and recognition, whereas congruity has more of an effect on attitudes of the customer. The second experiment shows that when the website evokes enough recall and recognition a moderate amount of congruity will develop.

The article written by Sophia Caragianis in simple terms, tells us how each colour impacts our moods. The article tells us that blue makes us feel centred, relaxed at serene. Yellow increases your energy and uplifts ones mood by instilling joy. White encourages happiness, goodness and cleanliness. Green helps to reduce anxiety and encourages composure while giving off a natural feel. The colour purple is rich and dramatic and represents royalty and luxury. Orange adds excitement and can stimulate appetite. Red which is commonly used in advertising to catch attention raises blood pressure and the heartbeat. This may spark the feeling that the customer has to act at that moment. Pink has a calming effect on nerves and anger. It has the opposite effect of red and will keep you calm rather than enrage you. The article also states that it promotes feelings of love and kindness.

The article “How does colour affect advertising?” explains the effects that the colours have on consumer feelings about the product and business.

The use of colour indicates the type of mood you want your consumer to associate with the business but specifically the product being advertised. Blue which stimulates serenity can hopefully carry through to the product. This article states that in order to catch the attention of a consumer, a bright colour catchy colour should be used. Red would be a relevant colour to use as it is highly vibrant and will catch the attention of consumers in the target market of the relevant clothing store.

In order to attract the correct target market research needs to be done in order to determine which colours will attract them more over a normal individual. A huge factor to be considered would be the geography of the target market. This article also states that choosing the correct colours can help convey the characteristics of the product, and in this case black in the clothing industry would represent elegance.

The article “Choosing the right colour: a way to increase sales”analyses the effects colour psychology in marketing affects consumer behaviour. It also focuses on the correct usage of colour. This article can be used to increase customer attention and increase sales. This literature piece also states that colour affects how we interact with humans and inanimate objects. When advertising on any platform it is highly important to use the correct colours that are visible enough, to evoke the correct emotions. Factors such as age, gender, culture and economic level should be considered when choosing colours to promote a product or brand. The concept of colours is a taught and can therefor change overtime. Colour in general can affect how the customer perceives the product and can create an atmosphere in retail stores. This article looks at the literature and psychology of colour meaning and its effects on the different industries

Physical objects in an environment and how the eye and brain processes and understands them are key factors to consider when choosing brand and product colours. Colour stability and constancy influences how the customer views the object. Blue, green and red are the primary colours that can be mixed and as a result other colours will be formed from that. In this article, marketers believe that colour has high influence in the selection process of products. Colours differentiate competitive brands from each other. Younger people are also more influenced by colour.

The article “The psychology of colour in marketing and branding “ states that perception relies on personal preferences, culture, upbringing, experiences and cultural differences. The colours are classed as follows:

• Grey- balance
• Green –peaceful
• Blue-trust
• Purple- creative
• Red- excitement
• Orange-friendly
• Yellow-optimism

Based on this article we can see that colour perception is based on experiences and one cannot say that these colours will always evoke these specific moods in people. A combination of colours will create the desired mood, depending on how much and where the colours are used. 90% of product judgements are based on its colour and appearance. Customers will always prefer recognisable brands and colour is important when attempting to create a strong and successful brand image. If a business sells high fashioned clothing then, the appropriate sophisticated colours should be used when promoting that specific line e.g. the usage of black. Research needs to be put into the different colours and how they affect people in terms of their experience to create a general feel and personality of the product as this plays a huge role in persuasion.

Methodology

A qualitative approach was used to obtain information on how colour affects sales in the clothing industry. A questionnaire which will be completed by a group of 50 individuals, ranging between the ages of 16-25 and this questionnaire will be constructed and handed out by myself to the participant. The questionnaire will be used to collect more data on the topic at hand. 20 leaners from La Salle College, from both the grade 11 and 12 classes, will be handed questionnaires to complete. The other 30 questionnaires will be handed out to individuals, both male and female, ranging between the ages of 19-25, outside clothing stores in West Gate Shopping Centre. Both males and females will be tested in order to determine if colours affect men and women differently. To avoid conflict I plan on approaching each individual calmly and kindly to simply ask if they wouldn’t mind participating in a questionnaire which will assist me in completing this research task. Some of these individuals will be members of my family. A colour questionnaire will be printed especially for questions that require colour to be answered. For ethical reasons no names will be asked, recorded or mentioned in any of the primary research, findings and/or task. Personal information such as age, race and amount of money earned will be kept confidential. No questionnaires will be handed to participants before they are stamped and approved for dispersal by the principle of La Salle College. Below is a copy of the questionnaire that will be handed out.Conclusion

This research task has proven how vital colour is in effective advertising. Attracting the correct target market requires using the correct colours to attract that specific market. Colours have a huge effect on one’s mood and if not used correctly can have a negative impact on the sales of a business and a failure of a specific product. Poor usage of colours in advertising can result a minimum number of sales for the business. The information gathered from both the primary and secondary research has proven this vitality.

Recommendations

Businesses in the clothing industry should conduct surveys like this one in this research task, just in a bit more depth to get a proper understanding of their desired target market.

They should pay more attention to what their target markets are interested in and maybe do more research on different target markets and explore a new segment of the market.

Businesses in the clothing industry should conduct a Biology version of this research task to get an in depth understanding of the brain and the effect colour has on it. After they conduct that test they can then do studies on the colours that will boost sales for their business. Businesses in the clothing industry are not the only businesses that can use this research task to obtain this kind of useful information that will help boost their sales and increase brand strength.

Self -reflection

This research task was personally very tiring but interesting. It was very resourceful and gave me the opportunity to understand how colour affects the everyday use of items. Personally I would do a research task like this again because it was overall very informative and required very little research effort as the topic information was easily accessible. If I were to do this research task again I would do it in a different subject such as Life Science because I would like to understand the actual affect that colour has on the brain rather than sales in the clothing industry. At times this task was highly tedious because of technical issues that arose. Also the interpretation of the information was a bit complicated as each question needed to be analysed with its own graph, table or chart.