制造基地/组织能力

When it comes to branding and packaging, color is crucial. Colors are often used to trigger sensory reactions and emotions, and to prompt consumers to make assessments about brands.

Unlike traditional pulp mold manufacturers, we have modified the production system specifically for the mass production capacity of 'color'. These modular production units can quickly switch from one color to another for production in a short time. Not only that, our production engineers are also good at adjusting the color formula to make the quality and stability of the finished product consistent. Our original formula uses food-grade colorings and has passed BPI standard certification.

A Comprehensive Guide to Choosing Packaging Colours

Color— a visual representation of your brand— is an integral part of product packaging. It can trigger thoughts, feelings, and emotions about your product; and, directly impact the purchasing decision. That’s because 85% of consumers buy products based on color.

This makes picking the right colour or colours for packaging all the more important. But how do you pick a palette that suits your brand, describes your product, helps you build a unique identity, and appeals to your customers?

How to Choose the Right Packaging Colors

Consumer Buying Behavior tells us that consumers are influenced by packaging colours. When picking the most suitable shade for your product packaging, you need to keep several things in mind.

Think of the buyer: Your consumers should be able to connect with the colours you choose. Keep the target market in focus. Understand their needs, their motivation. What is their age, gender, economic status, education? For example, McDonald’s classic red and yellow colour represents energy and youthfulness that their target audience can relate to

The Packaging Colour Psychology

Different hues influence human behaviour and emotion in multiple ways. A person’s response to a particular colour is triggered involuntarily and is driven by psychology. For example, brighter colours tend to reduce the seriousness of packaging, black adds sophistication to any packaging, grey or brown make the packaging conservative or masculine, pink adds a feminine touch, while red draws attention.

Shade and tint also play a role. They simply decide how a dull or bright colour should be since different tones have different meanings.

Let’s take a look at popular colours and their business perception.

White

ATTRIBUTES: simplicity, elegance, purity

BRANDS: Apple, Dove, Himalaya Baby Products

White is a packaging colour that is often used to convey that the product is simple, safe, traditional. For instance, Apple always highlighted the simplicity of their devices and all iPhone or iPad packaging is white. White is often accented with other colours to enhance or change the perception.

Black

ATTRIBUTES: sophistication, strength, authority

BRANDS: Zara, Coach

Generally, black is used for high-end products, and the colour conveys a sense of luxury. It evokes class and elegance. Like white or grey, black can also be accentuated with other colours. Metalized gold or silver printing on matte black packaging creates an expensive look.

Blue

ATTRIBUTES: strength, honesty, dependability, harmony, serenity

BRANDS: Renu, Gillette, Pepsi

When it comes to product packaging, blue is one of the safest colours to use, irrespective of the age or gender of the potential customer. Another way to view this is to think of blue as boring, owing to its reliability and common use. You’ll have to think about your potential customers before going ahead with blue. Choosing the right shade of blue can allow you to target a specific market. Generally, darker shades of blue appeal to older audiences whereas lighter or more vibrant hues are for younger customers.

Red

ATTRIBUTES: excitement, passion, strength

BRANDS: Coca-Cola, KFC, Nescafe

Red can stand for a lot of things. It really depends on the shade of red you are using. Darker shades are linked with products that are luxurious and professional whereas lighter shades are associated with products that are lively, energetic, but can be thought of as having a lower market value. Often gold or silver embellishments can help in lifting the perceived value.

Green

ATTRIBUTES: security, growth, harmony

BRANDS: Subway, Green Tea

Green has been a staple colour for eco-friendly, natural, or healthy organic products. Like with red, darker shades of green are often linked to more luxurious products whereas muted shades are used for products associated with safety or nutrition.

Yellow

ATTRIBUTES: fun, optimism, energy

BRANDS: McDonald’s, Sunflower Oil, Amul, Lego

In packaging, yellow suggests originality, innovation, and fun. Yellow packaging is generally targeted at children and adolescents. It is an excellent option for products that aim to make people happy.

Pink

ATTRIBUTES: calming, beauty, femininity

BRANDS: Barbie, Victoria’s Secret

Pink is non-threatening and calming. It is associated with empathy, sincerity, and beauty. Softer shades of pink are generally used for the packaging of products that are targeted towards females. However, darker shades of pink or combining pink with darker colours signify strength and sophistication. A muted and greyed out pink attracts an older market whereas bright neon pink attracts pre-teens.While individual colours indicate certain aspects, adding a combination of colours, accents, or prints in a different colour can change or alter your messaging. When creating a colour palette for your packaging, it is essential to know how to combine colours. You can choose from harmonious or contrasting colours. For instance, green tea packaging might have analogous colours whereas an energy drink packaging usually has complementary, bright colours.

Packaging Color by Industry

The industry plays an important role when it comes to packaging colour. That’s because of the perception the industry has on the buyer. Buyers are likely to take food and pharmaceutical packaging colour more seriously than FMCG product packaging. Here are some insights.

Food and Beverage

In food packaging, red has always been universally accepted. Green is used for healthy and natural foods whereas yellow is used for high energy serotonin-inducing products. Orange is associated with healthy and filling foods such as oats whereas blue is used for fun foods, such as cakes or crackers.

Cosmetics

Cosmetic packaging traditionally makes use of pink and blue hues. As expected, packaging with pink is targeted towards female consumers whereas blue has been used for both the male and female segments. Cosmetic packaging also makes use of black and white colours. Products with charcoal often use grey or black packaging. Whereas products for children or products with milk extracts make use of white packaging.

Retail

In retail packaging, the colour often depends on the product as well as the brand. In most cases, the colour is determined by the product. At other times, the colour associated with branding is used. For instance, the packaging of the detergent product, Tide, has been predominantly orange, and the colour is a part of the brand identity.Similarly, Canon uses red and white in their camera and printer retail packaging. The retail packaging of Casio watches uses vastly different colours. They use blue for their low-cost line-up, black for the more expensive series, white for women’s watches, and grey for their vintage collection. On the Run energy bars have different colours of packaging that indicate different flavours.

Electronics

The colour used in electronics packaging often depends on the brand’s image or message – there is no fixed colour. For instance, Microsoft uses white, grey, or black packaging for its Surface devices to signify simplicity and power. Apple also makes use of white packaging. Motorola has made use of more vibrant colours for their phone boxes. While Logitech uses its proprietary green shade.

Some Final Tips Before Winding Up

Keep your customers and your brand at the forefront when choosing packaging colours. If you’re going all out with re-branding or creating packaging for a new product, If you want to deep dive and understand packaging colours, font, and dimensions used by other brands or want to compare designs, our work team can help you.

Are there any other colours you’d like to know about? Have you tested out packaging shades for your product? If you’re looking to decide on the right packaging colour, let’s start a conversation. Our team of experts can help you create a remarkable package design.