Colour is a powerful part of communicating your brand. Colour sets the mood and creates emotions. These emotions can be powerful and can drive a person’s decision making so it is important to understand that your brand is more than just the logo.
To create strong emotional connections, you need to use colour. And at an event or exhibition, your brand colours being a huge part of your exhibition stand can make a great difference in terms of luring people in to see what you have on offer.
Research shows that the use of colour can increase brand recognition by as much as 80%. It can also raise the visual appearance by a huge 93%. So, getting the right colours to convey your message can see a huge upturn in the success of your brand at both event and retail levels. Give a few companies a quick review in your mind and instantly a colour should come to mind. Coca-Cola? Red, Facebook? Blue, Subway? Green. And then think about how often that colour is used throughout the brand. It is everywhere! It will be on webpages, staff uniforms, POS, packaging, and furniture as well as pretty much anything else that the brand use. The brand is the colour, and the colour is the brand.
What message do brand colours portray?
Consumers buy because of brand colours. This may at first seem odd, but studies have shown that different colours evoke different emotions. As a result, purchasing decisions can be made based on the colours you choose to use for your brand. It is almost like colour can help enhance a consumer’s trust in your brand. A company promoting animal care is unlikely to choose blood red for example. It would instantly give the consumer very mixed thoughts about the company.
Colour psychology looks at how colour influences behaviour and decision-making, and in marketing the visual appeal of an item is the major influence on a consumer’s buying decision.
We looked at 3 colours commonly used in branding and the thoughts commonly associated with them:
RED: Passion, love, excitement, anger
BLUE: Calmness, responsibility, creativity, confidence
GREEN: Nature, relaxation, wealth, luck
Why does colour matter for your brand?
We have already covered what some colours can do in terms of the thoughts, emotions, and moods they may create and shown just how much brand recognition can be enhanced by colour but why else should colour be important for your branding?
- Perception of your brand can be largely swayed by the colours you choose. Are you looking to show your brand as fun or serious? Do you want to be seen as corporate or leisurely? Do you want a certain element of quality accentuated? Or should a cost-based focus be important? The correct colours can help give these answers to a consumer.
- Consistency ensures that there are no mixed messages in terms of your brand. Switching from something fun and exciting to something serious and corporate will not only confuse customers but may also harm sales as people may think there is a change in what you do or the pricing model you may start to follow.
- Logos mean more when brand colours are used correctly. It is best to use no more than three colours in a logo and split them in a 60/30/10 percentage. The colour also helps the brand remain memorable. This then ties in with the two above reasons why colour matters!
Things to consider for brand colours at an exhibition
When it comes to exhibiting especially at a trade show or business-to-business event the exhibition halls can be a sea of corporate blue and therefore creating a marketing display that stands out from the crowd can be hard. But it isn’t impossible even if blue is your colour!
With colour being one of the most powerful tools when creating your exhibition display stand, you need to make it a big consideration in your stand design. With only 3 seconds to grab a passers-by’s attention, the more creative your ideas the better.
Some considerations you may want to make when choosing themes and colours to attract attention at an exhibition are:
Make Sure You Stay on Brand
Although it may be tempting to go all out when creating a themed exhibition stand in order to look different to everyone else. it is important to keep on brand. Picking colours that don’t match up with your brand can cause confusion and make your stand less memorable.
Ask an Expert
If you are not sure what colours will work well with your brand, consult with a graphics designer who will be able to give you ideas! Working with colour is about getting the right balance, colour directs the eye so you can use it to draw attention to specific areas of your display. If have a monochrome logo think about using a bold colour accent within the display or even think beyond your custom modular exhibition stands and have coloured flooring and furniture.
Choose a Reusable Display
By choosing a reusable display you can re-dress and rebrand it for different events. It may be the case that you can be more daring at some events than others and use different colour palettes depending on your audience and the event you are at. Reusable displays are not only reconfigurable and able to be altered to the space you need but they are also sustainable exhibition stands meaning you not only benefit the environment but also your pocket too! You can find out even more about what impact colour can have on your exhibition stand in one of our previous posts.
Should you have an event or exhibition coming up soon, make sure your brand colours are on point to help secure those leads and generate those sales! With Nomadic Display, your focus can be the event prep as our team will not only help with the design process but can also be on hand as experts in exhibition stand installation too! Contact us today to help you design your stand and have you ready to make an impact!