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.

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.