Color Marketing Research: Review and Prospects

Abstract

Color is a key factor in marketing research. Color factors cannot be separated from the product packaging design, terminal environment, online shopping and other marketing activities. In the field of consumer behavior research, color related issues have attracted more and more attention from academic circles. First, this article defines the concept of color. Color is mainly divided into black & white and color, which includes three elements: hue, brightness and saturation. We generalize the study of color in psychology, neurology, aesthetics and sociology and other disciplines. Then we review the research about the influence of color on consumers, combing the influence of black & white on consumers, the influence of three elements of color on consumers, the impact of the interaction of color and other sensory elements （position, shape, hearing, smell, touch, taste） on consumers. Black & white will give consumers different levels of moral conceptual metaphors and construal level perceptions. The hue of color will affect consumers’ perceptions of the temperature, emotion and cognitive performance. Saturation and brightness will affect the perception of consumers on the physical property of products （size, weight, quality, etc.）, and the individual perceived arousal level. There is a consistent relationship between color and other vision elements, such as shape and position. There is a synaesthetic effect between color and audio frequency, tone, melody in hearing. Color can cause deviation perceptions of temperature, hardness, texture, weight dimensions in the sense of touch. It can cause different olfactory associations, and food color, food containers color, the color of the eating environment will impact the perceptions of consumers’ taste. Then the influence mechanism of color on consumers is summarized. Color mainly affects consumers through three aspects: physiological response, psychological effects, and cultural implications. Different colors can cause individual changes in physiological parameters such as hormones, heart rate and blood pressure. Psychological effects of color on consumers can be divided into two mechanisms: emotion and cognition. Different colors can lead to different emotions and arousal levels, and the cognitive mechanism of color on consumers including processing modes and conceptual metaphors. Consumers will establish perceptions of color based on the meaning of conceptual metaphors. Black & white color brings different metaphorical meanings to consumers and then influences consumers’ evaluation. Color in different cultures will lead to different metaphorical associations for consumers. The color aesthetic culture is also closely related to the history of color development and national religious cultures. Finally, on the basis of studying the context of color research, the influence and the mechanism of color on consumers, future research directions of color are explored from four aspects: color combination, the interaction of color and other visual elements, the interaction of color and other senses, and color psychology.