Colour Psychology in Marketing: What the Research Really Says and How to Use It in Ads, Packaging and Stores

What colour can and cannot do in marketing

The research behind colour psychology, in plain words

Colour and brand personality

In a set of studies, Labrecque and Milne (2012) examined how logo and packaging colours relate to perceived brand personality. They reported associations such as red with excitement, blue with competence, pink with sincerity and black with sophistication, and found that colour can influence purchase intent through these perceptions. The practical lesson: choose colours that support the personality you want, not just colours the founder likes.

Context changes meaning

Elliot and Maier (2014) reviewed decades of colour research and argued that colour effects depend on context. Red can signal danger in one setting and romance or celebration in another. For a brand, the context includes the category, culture, occasion and the competitors next to you.

Be careful with famous statistics

You may have seen claims that most snap judgments about products are based on colour alone. This kind of figure is often traced to a 2006 review by Singh, which summarised earlier work. Treat such numbers as rough indications from older sources, not precise measurements, and never base a big decision on them without testing.

Contrast and attention

People notice what is different from its surroundings. A call-to-action button in a colour that contrasts with the rest of the page, or a pack that breaks the dominant colour of a shelf, is easier to spot. The winning colour is the one that contrasts in that specific place, which is why copying another brand's button colour rarely helps.

Consistency builds memory

Researchers at institutions such as the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute stress distinctive brand assets: colours, shapes and other cues that people link to one brand. A colour becomes an asset only after long, consistent use across packaging, ads, stores and social media. Changing colours every campaign throws that memory away.

How to choose and use colour in your marketing, step by step

1. List the three or four personality traits your brand should signal, such as premium, trustworthy or playful.
2. Audit your category: photograph shelves, competitor feeds and websites, and note the dominant colours.
3. Choose a primary brand colour that fits your personality and is distinctive in that category.
4. Choose one high-contrast accent colour reserved for actions such as buttons and offers.
5. Check readability: text on coloured backgrounds needs enough contrast to be easy to read.
6. Check cultural meaning with your UAE, Saudi and GCC audience, including occasions such as National Day and Ramadan.
7. Apply colours consistently across pack, ads, website, store and social templates.
8. Test variations in real conditions: A/B test ads and landing pages, and mock up shelves before printing.
9. Keep what works for years, and evolve slowly rather than replacing it.

Original colour audit checklist for brands

• What are the three dominant colours on our category shelf or in competitor feeds?
• Does our pack or ad stand out from them at a glance, at small size and on a phone?
• Is our action colour used only for actions, so it signals where to click?
• Is all text readable on our colours, including Arabic text?
• Do our colours match the personality we want customers to feel?
• Are colours consistent across pack, website, store, ads and social?
• Have we checked meanings with people from our target markets?
• What test will we run before changing a colour?

A worked example

Imagine a UAE snack brand whose packs are a pale beige, sitting on a shelf dominated by beige and brown packs from competitors. The brand wants to signal fun and energy. It mocks up three versions of the pack: one in a bold orange, one in deep blue and one in its current beige with a brighter logo. It places photos of each version among real competitor packs and asks shoppers in its target group which pack they notice first and which feels most fun, while also testing the three designs as Instagram ad creatives. The brand chooses the version that stands out and fits its personality in both tests, and then keeps that colour on every pack, ad and display. This illustration shows a method, not a guaranteed result.

Want Husbar to do this for you?

Husbar can audit your colours across packaging, ads, website and store, and run tests that show what your customers notice and trust. Book a free Growth Audit, or run our free 60-second website audit to check how your landing pages guide the eye.

Colour on landing pages

On a landing page, colour has three jobs: keep the brand recognisable, guide the eye to the next step and keep text easy to read. Use a calm background, your brand colour for headers and accents, and one contrasting colour only for buttons. If a page has several bright colours competing, visitors do not know where to look. Combine colour with clear copy, because a bright button with a vague label still loses clicks.

Colour in retail and on shelf

In stores, shoppers scan quickly. Blocks of a single colour on shelf, sometimes called colour blocking, make a brand easier to find, especially when several products from the same range sit together. Store fixtures, lighting and signage also change how colours look, so check printed samples under real store lighting before approving packaging.

Arabic and bilingual design

In the UAE and Saudi Arabia, packs and ads often carry Arabic and English. Check that Arabic text is as readable as English on your colours, that the visual weight of both scripts is balanced, and that your accent colour still guides the eye in right-to-left layouts.

How Husbar helps

Husbar applies consumer psychology and neuromarketing principles to brand identity, packaging, ads, landing pages and retail displays for UAE and Saudi brands, and designs tests so colour and design decisions are based on evidence. Our psychology-led advertising team can take this on end to end, or support your team. book a free Growth Audit.

Questions to ask before you start

• Which personality should our colours signal?
• Which colours dominate our category?
• Does our call to action stand out on every page?
• Are we consistent enough for colour to become an asset?
• How will we test colour before a big change?

Key terms

• Colour psychology: how colours influence perception and behaviour.
• Brand personality: human traits people associate with a brand.
• Distinctive brand asset: a cue, such as a colour, that people link to one brand.
• Contrast: the difference between an element and its surroundings.
• Category code: colour conventions shoppers expect in a product category.

Mistakes to avoid

• Choosing colours by personal taste alone.
• Trusting infographic percentages without testing.
• Using the action colour everywhere, so nothing stands out.
• Changing brand colours every campaign.
• Ignoring text readability and cultural context.

Why ads fail without psychology

Most ad accounts do not fail because of the platform. They fail because the message does not match what the buyer is feeling at that moment: the fear, the hope or the comparison going on in their head. When the hook, the offer and the landing page all speak to the same motive, the same budget buys more qualified leads and more sales.

Related reading: packaging design psychology, neuromarketing in retail, neuromarketing vs consumer psychology, creative testing framework for ads and quick commerce for FMCG brands.