Why Not Colorize!

Studies have repeatedly shown that full colour printed materials are more “influential” and promote higher response rates, whether used for sales, marketing, or educational purposes. Adding colour will cost more, but it serves a useful purpose. Here are a few good reasons to add color to your company’s printed documents, signs and marketing materials:

Why Colour Matters

1.) Colour increases memory.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a picture with natural colours may be worth a million words, memory-wise. Psychologists have documented that “living colour” does more to appeal to the senses. It also boosts memory for scenes in the natural world by hanging an extra “tag” on the data on visual scenes, color helps us to process and store images more effectively than colourless (black and white) scenes, and as a result, to remember them better, too. 

Source: The Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, American Psychological Association (APA) May 2002 issue

2.) Colour increases brand recognition up to 80%.

Source: University of Loyola, Maryland study

3.) Ads in colour are read 42% more often than ads in black and white.

Source: Colour for Impact, Jan V. White, Strathmore Press, 1997

4.) Colour improves …

… Learning from 55 to 78 percent

(Source: Modern Office Technology, July 1989, pp. 98-102)

… Readership by 40 percent

(Source: Marketing Communications, David Embry, October 1984)

… Comprehension by 73 percent

(Source: Successful Meetings, The Power of Colour, Virginia Johnson, June 1992, pp. 87-90)

5.) Just think about this:

The Colour Marketing Group (CMG) www.colormarketing.org, is a not-for-profit association of over 1100 colour designers that are involved in the use of color as it applies to the profitable marketing of goods and services. CMG provides a forum for the exchange of non-competitive information on all phases of colour marketing; trends and combinations; design influences; and marketing and sales. CMG members are highly qualified colour designers who interpret, create, forecast, and select colours in order to enhance function, salability, and/or quality of a product.

Question: Do you think it is possible that your organization may have overlooked the value of color in its printed documents?