If the target demographic for your business is gender specific, or you’re considering a marketing push specifically to men or women, should the colour of your packaging, the décor of your shop or your promotional literature take that into account? We are now told that ‘real men wear pink’ and that our children should be able to choose non-gender specific colours for their clothes and toys, so have we moved beyond gender colour associations? Or are woman still attracted to pastels and pinks and men still drawn to bold colours?
Kissmetrics has created an infographic demonstrating the relationship between gender and colour and the relationship this has to marketing and branding. It incorporates research conducted throughout the last 70 years.
The infographic demonstrates the similarities and differences between male and female colour preferences. The biggest difference is that over a fifth of women would chose purple at their favourite colour, whereas no men surveyed chose purple, and a fifth of them chose it as their least favourite colour. There are actually a lot of similarities between the genders’ choices, for example, blue, red and green are universally liked by men and women, with blue being the most popular. These results suggest that the differences between male and female colour preference is quite subtle, but it’s probably best to steer clear of purple when targeting men.
Women are more attracted to tints, which is a colour with white added to it, and softer colours. Men are more attracted to shades, which is a colour with black added to it, and brighter colours. Achromatic colours, which contain no ‘hue’ such as black, shades of grey and white, are more accepted by men then by women.
So if your business targets men, bold shades could help make the best impact. If you are selling to women, try using gentler tints.
Feeling inspired to integrate colour into your business? Check out the full Brother colour laser print range.
Section of infographic demonstrating the results of colour experiments, see the full infographic here.
Sources
Kissmetrics
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