HOW DIFFERENT CULTURES PERCEIVE COLOURS
Colour has been used to drive decision-making in the fields of marketing and behavioural science.
However, individuals’ perception colours can people from different cultures. We look at important elements to consider for anyone using colour to change behaviour.
In marketing, red and green are cited because green is thought to trigger perceptions such as “calm” or “healthy” whereas red elicits “anger” or “unhealthy” connotations.
To illustrate, the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) cafeteria, used learnings from a USA based childhood obesity intervention called “Red light, Green light, Eat right” (watch this video to learn more). MGH attached either green, red or amber labels to healthy, unhealthy or moderately healthy foods to help patients make quick judgements about the nutritional value of food items. This intervention reduced sales of unhealthy food items in by 20% in 24 months.
As shown in the above examples, in Western based cultures like the USA, the red, amber, green colour system does show promising results; however, do these colours (and others) have the same associations in other cultures? If not, the intervention might backfire.
CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN COLOUR PERCEPTION
Colour researchers have found a number of differences in the way that different cultures perceive and interpret colour. For example, A study by Leung and Chen (2011) found that American investor’s associate red with a market decline, while in China, red is used to indicate an increasing market.
Thus, whereas Americans sell when they see red, Chinese investors are likely to buy.
In digital retail markets, these differences can have dramatic implications. Colour researchers Jiang et al. (2021), highlight the colour differences between Amazon and it’s Chinese based competitors. In their analysis, they found that while Amazon’s “Add to cart” and “Buy now” buttons are green, its Chinese competitors use red. These changes are better suited to Chinese markets.
Fast food chain, McDonalds, has done well to make their brand cross-culturally appropriate. McDonalds follow a customised web site strategy, with a different web site and different colours in every country.
SOME COLOURS CROSS THE CULTURAL DIVIDE
While there are differences, colour can also be strikingly pan-cultural. In a study on cross-cultural colour comparisons, people from four cultures (Japan, China, South Korea, and the USA) were asked to make word associations for eight colours. The results were:
- Across all the four cultures, the subjects associated red with love.
- Blue was synonymously associated with high quality.
- In the three Asian cultures, purple was seen as expensive but for US participants the opposite was true; purple was seen as cheap.
- Black was consistently associated with expensive and powerful across cultures.
BRINGING IT TOGETHER
When considering what colour to use for your brand, design feature or intervention, make sure to research the cross-cultural considerations. When applying colour to change behaviour, it will be useful to note:
- There are no clear-cut rules to applying colour.
- Understand how your targets will react to different colours well, before making assumptions.
- Be prepared to change your colour scheme to better suit your target market.
