Factors Influencing Color Decisions

Cultural and Traditional Factors

• Colors have different connotations and traditional uses across cultures, which can impact manufacturers and producers.
• In South-East Asia, light blue symbolizes death and mourning, which led to Pepsi-Cola losing its market share to Coca-Cola when they changed the color of their coolers and vending equipment from deep blue to light blue.
• In the UK, pastel shades are associated with spring, bright colors with summer, and dark shades with winter.

Social-Psychological Factors

• Self and group identity, personal expression, and social status influence color decisions.
• People's interior environment reflects how they see themselves and how they wish to be perceived.
• Group expectations and peer pressure also play a role in color choices.

Economic and Political Factors

• Technology, production, and distribution of goods, as well as consumer demand and income, influence color decisions.
• Historical and political events can affect colors for apparel, such as the tendency to select pastels as people climb up the social ladder.

Aesthetic Factors

• Creativity, taste, and what is considered attractive or beautiful at a particular time influence color decisions.
• The desire to decorate and improve our lives also falls under this category.

Managerial Factors

• Needs and desires, management of resources, and buying habits influence color decisions.

Physical Factors

• Psychologists have discovered that colors can affect blood pressure, heart rate, and rate of respiration.
• Pink has a calming effect on stressed individuals, which is why theatres often have green rooms to promote relaxation.
• Color can also affect physical taste, as demonstrated by Swiss research on the perceived strength of coffee served in different colored mugs.

Other Factors

• Small color deviations can make a decisive difference to the psychological impact of a color.
• Dark-eyed people are more sensitive to color than light-eyed people.
• Research also indicates that people with specific hair and eye colors tend to prefer certain types of colors.