Emotional Branding and Color

We all know it’s a com­pet­i­tive world out there. Stay­ing top of mind as a brand is ever more cru­cial. We’re all com­pet­ing for atten­tion. And with the over-sat­u­ra­tion of visu­als, how are we to grab atten­tion? Well, you’d want to tap into emo­tion­al brand­ing and hon­or your brand col­or. These emo­tions not only allow us to con­nect with a brand, it makes us remem­ber it. HOW we feel when we inter­act with that brand is cru­cial. Visu­als — espe­cial­ly your brand col­ors pay a cru­cial role in emotions.

2018 pantone color of the year, color trends, color palettes, green color palettes, color theory, Pantone colors, Pantone color of the year, green, green color combinations, color ideas, how to select colors for your brand

How Color Builds on emotional Branding

Brands that tru­ly har­ness the emo­tion­al con­nec­tion to col­or can cre­ate pro­found impres­sions on the mar­ket. We can eas­i­ly rec­og­nize sev­er­al brands based on their col­or. Yahoo, Cad­bury, Hall­mark are pur­ple. Coca Cola, Nin­ten­do and ESPN are red. Star­bucks, Girl Scouts and Trop­i­cana are green. LinkedIn, Dell and Chase bank are blue. The list goes on.

As you read this list, did you find your­self spon­ta­neous­ly not just “see­ing” the Coca Cola, Hall­mark, or the Star­bucks logo, but their adver­tis­ing too? Coca Cola uses the warm reds to give you that cozy feel­ing — espe­cial­ly dur­ing the hol­i­days. Or you all of a sud­den craved a warm pump­kin spice lat­te from Starbucks.

Now that Pan­tone announced Ultra Vio­let as the 2018 col­or of the year, we imme­di­ate­ly thought of a brand that uses this col­or with emo­tion­al brand­ing bril­liance: Cad­bury. Their adverts are pure genius. They take their brand col­or, make you FEEL it and infuse the col­or into every sin­gle detail of their ads. Their whole adverts serve to make you feel their tagline: “Free the Joy”. We’ve lined up some of their best adverts to show you what we mean. We’ll start with our favorite.

1. The Most Talented Gorilla

We may be a lit­tle biased because Cad­bury used the Phil Collins song “In the Air Tonight”. This advert was done before the Hang­over made his song pop­u­lar to the mass media. We’ve been fans before then. Now, back to our point… As you watch this advert, they start with their pro­duc­tion name and a pur­ple back­ground. Cue in the amaz­ing goril­la. Did you notice how we were cued to go through emo­tions by the goril­las expres­sions? And as the music is going to peak, the cam­era pans out, he takes a deep breath… bursts with life and sur­pris­es us with his musi­cal tal­ent. Hon­est­ly, who wouldn’t want to see a goril­la drumming?

2. Boogie On With Color

Did you notice how pur­ple was their pre­dom­i­nant brand col­or? Cad­bury clear­ly makes the state­ment with­in the first few sec­onds. Then, it con­tin­u­al­ly enforces it in big and small details — the socks, the ele­va­tor but­ton, the lady drink­ing cof­fee, even the light­ing had pur­ple under­tones. Now this advert intro­duces more col­ors to their brand. As peo­ple boo­gie-roll down the hall, you clear­ly see how each per­son wears a col­or con­nect­ed to the col­ors in each of their choco­late bars. Once they end their fun chair stroll “There’s more than one way to #Freethe­Joy” is dis­played. For a minute there, you felt a part of that joy. And yes, they kin­da make you wish your office allowed you to boo­gie on down the hall­way in your rolling chair. That’s pure bril­liance in cre­at­ing emo­tion­al brand­ing, don’t you think?

3. The Joy Of Motherhood

This video prob­a­bly tar­gets par­ents emo­tions a lit­tle more. From the very begin­ning, you see pur­ple under­tones through the glow in the babies skin, to the bub­bles. This stun­ning ani­ma­tion makes you feel as if you are in cocooned in a lit­tle world of joy. Three lit­tle triplets sing their lit­tle hearts out while in their moth­ers womb. As the song plays “I’ve got joy in my heart” you get a feel­ing of how the babies are bliss­ful. As the cam­era pans out, you see the joy they feel came from the food their mom was eat­ing — a deli­cious Cad­bury chocolate.

Cad­bury has cer­tain­ly built a brand that cap­ti­vates emo­tion around their prod­uct: joy. It leaves you feel­ing like joy is just a choco­late bar away. They cer­tain­ly har­ness the cre­ative, imag­i­na­tive, and enchant­i­ng feel­ings that pur­ple can bring. And of course the music accom­pa­ny­ing the visu­als in their adverts was per­fect­ly aligned. When we build emo­tion­al con­nec­tions to brands, it makes a last­ing impres­sion. They imprint their essence into your mind. And it makes it hard to forget.

Har­ness­ing the pow­er of col­or for your brand should always be strate­gic. Know­ing what emo­tions they can evoke are a must. Not sure where to start? You can learn how col­or can influ­ence oth­ers in our lat­est 2018 Col­or Trends Guide­book.

2018 pantone color of the year, color trends, color palettes, green color palettes, color theory, Pantone colors, Pantone color of the year, green, green color combinations, color ideas, how to select colors for your brand

About the Author

Nicte Cuevas, Principal of Nicte Creative Design, empowers mission-driven businesses through strategic design & branding. Nicte has applied this when working with Adobe Spark and Twitter Business, LinkedIn Learning, Dogs on Deployment and Purina, Girl Scouts, The Houston Zoo and The Contemporary Arts Museum. Her excellence in communication design & marketing has been recognized by multiple national / international awards, including a coveted feature in Graphic Design USA's People to Watch.

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  1. Nicte the way you lay out this with the ref­er­ence to Cad­bury ads was sim­ply amaz­ing. I would have nev­er noticed such details if it was­n’t men­tioned here. In the first video, I real­ized what col­or of cloth­ing the peo­ple are wear­ing resem­bles the choco­late bars that appear at the end. 

    1. I’m glad to hear that it made you notice those beau­ti­ful details, Ross. Our mind still reg­is­ters them, but when we actu­al­ly become aware of it, it becomes even more impact­ful as you noticed. Did­n’t it make you want to try their chocolates?

  2. Indeed, the ad did. Emo­tion­al brand­ing can only be achieved by putting what cus­tomers deem most impor­tant ahead of every­thing else and this ad from Cad­bury is one of the best I’ve ever seem. Thanks for sharing.

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