We live in a ‘colour’ rich world today. The world has evolved from plain jaded black and white to one with exuberant ‘colour’. ‘Colour’ is everywhere. We watch movies in ‘colour’ rather than the black and white ones, read multi-coloured newspapers, drive in innovatively named ‘coloured’ cars than the mundane primary, secondary ones and use electronic gadgets like mobile phones and laptops especially designed in vibrant colours that attract all generations alike. We even experiment with our hair colour and the list goes on…
‘Colour’ means telling a story beyond the monochrome, one with greater context, texture and meaning. ‘Colour’ adds life to everything and anything. Ever wondered the impact of watching a Charlie Chaplin film on a ‘coloured’ reel rather than a B&W, or an MF Hussain, painting his canvas, on a monochrome palette, or even better, if MNCs, in this age had to build their brands without using any tinge of ‘colour’ – consider the brand recall variation of companies such as Pepsi or Google, if they had to do without ‘colour’ in their logos?
Why add ‘Colour’
According to the Institute for Color Research (CCICOLOUR), the average person makes a subliminal judgment about a product or person within 90 seconds and more than two-third of that judgment is based on colour! Today’s consumers are persistently bombarded by brands and their marketing campaigns. The market has become brand saturated by overloading the consumers’ senses. In this scenario, how do you engage and captivate your audience and stand out in a sea of infinite brands?
One of the most important constituents of a brand image that helps them in getting noticed and convey the right message – is COLOUR. In today’s dynamic and competitive business landscape, ‘colour’ is making its presence felt across various industry verticals. It has evolved over the years to become a powerful and impactful tool for brand recall and communication, thereby, leading to greater efficiencies and profitability. The use of ‘colour’ for maximising communication impact has been seen as an emerging trend; adding the right colours to brand image can help keep the brands afloat amongst a deluge of information and target the right audience.
According to a company research, there are a few interesting facts on ‘colour’ that makes it a strong business value proposition:
- ‘Colour’ increases readers’ attention span and recall by 82% (Conveys professionalism)
- ‘Colour’ increases response time by 44%
- ‘Colour’ reduces error by 80%
- ‘Colour’ also enhances productivity as it reduces search time by as much as 80%
- ‘Colour’ increases comprehension by as much as 73%
- ‘Colour’ improves sales and brand recognition by 80%
- ‘Colour’ makes it 70% easier to locate information in a huge, complicated document
The research also concludes that ‘Colour’ plays a vital role in improving communication.
Demand for ‘Colour’ in marketing collaterals
Another important component of brand image are ‘Marketing collaterals’. Colour marketing collateral is proven to impact responses. The use of even a little colour in marketing materials improves impact and enhances your brand image.
When creating your marketing collateral, your colour choice can have a remarkable impact on the mood you are trying to create for your brand. A study titled “Exciting red and competent blue” confirms that purchasing intent is greatly influenced by colours due to their impact on how a brand is distinguished or perceived. It also states that colours affect how customers view the “personality” of any brand. Who, for example, would want to buy an organic beauty product in a ‘Blue’ or ‘Red’ bottle?
High-resolution colour printers can help you implement impressive marketing campaigns without increasing costs or requiring a huge investment in time.
Transition to ‘Colour’ and its affordability
Organisations from Advertising and Design houses; to Textile; to BFSI and Education sectors etc., across Large enterprises to SMEs, are revealing growing usage of colour. The ‘colour’ market is one of the biggest areas of growth in the office automation industry.
Companies are investing a lot of money and resources to develop high-quality and cost-effective ‘colour’ technologies. One of the key factors that have driven the growth of colour is “price”. Xerox was amongst the first companies to track down the emerging ‘colour’ potential and offers diverse solutions today that help improve work processes for small and midsized businesses, to large enterprises. To bolster the current and future colour adoption rate in the country, Xerox India has maintained and upgraded its comprehensive portfolio offerings to meet its customised client requirements.
The introduction of new colour palettes by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) has also led to increased adoption of ‘colour’. For example, Xerox Colour 1000i Presses expands the Specialty Dry Ink portfolio beyond clear dry ink, enabling the ability to enhance print with true Pantone® metallic gold or silver inks.
‘Colour’ is a way of life
In the coming years, ‘Colour’ will see significant rise in its adoption and usage across various industry verticals and enterprises of varied sizes. ‘Colour’ will prove instrumental in customer retention, for businesses of all shapes and forms due to inherent advantages such as – increased productivity, faster turn-around, and high-quality documentation. Most importantly, ‘colour’ will play a vital role in all companies that are victimised and want to break away from clutter of “Information Overload” and make profits by saving cost, man hours and improving efficiencies.
With the backdrop of current global economic tightening, the need of the hour for businesses will be to remain competitive by managing cost efficiencies to achieve maximum RoI. Companies will need to adopt colour strategically looking at the business benefits of ‘Colour’ and evaluate its value add against their respective business goals. Vendors would continue to introduce products that will offer better print speeds, quality and consistency of print, which would enable a number of businesses to print many of their ‘colour’ documents in-house.
Out of the zillions of products competing for the attention of a single consumer, colour used right on a product or a brand, can be a highly significant tool for business success. In the long and short, brands and colours are indistinctly linked and ‘colour’ will be a winning business proposition.
- by Balaji Rajagopalan, Executive Director- Technology, Channels & International Business, Xerox India
