Spring Your Colors

Spend a little time considering what colors might liven up your store and advertising as warmer weather appears. Then consider springing for some money to use those colors to influence buying behavior. Hotter colors, like shades of red, speed up the shopper, while cooler colors, like shades of blue, give an impression of thoroughness.
     Organizations including Pantone Color Institute, Color Association of America, and Color Marketing Group predict what colors are becoming more popular. According to the forecasters, a big winner across product categories for North America and Europe is turquoise. One explanation is that consumers are looking for escape from winter cold and financial hardships. Turquoise reminds us of ocean resorts.
        Your choice of colors for everything from your merchandise and packaging to your store signage is a big component in communicating to the customer how contemporary you are. Looking contemporary is important in stores that sell women’s fashions, for instance. It’s less important, and can even be a negative, in stores and departments aiming for a nostalgia appeal, such as those selling traditional home furnishings.
     Have the spring colors augment—not overwhelm—the colors associated year-round with your business. Some colors that we’d think of as quite uninteresting in general can project a powerful message in specific instances. Consider brown. In his 1975 book, Dress for Success, John T. Molloy threw the color brown into the pile of hues that communicate boring, uninspired, and uncreative. Brown stayed there for about twenty years. Even black—labeled as powerful with a touch of menace—was winning out over brown. But then came Starbucks and the rest of the coffee culture. Brown was in. In their ads, United Parcel Service asked loud and proud “What can brown do for you?”

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers