What generates agreement from Germans but can drive Britons towards the extreme (apart from the football World Cup!). . . ?  Colour, of course!  

According to a pan EMEA survey* HP recently commissioned, green is the most suggestible colour and Germans the most easily persuaded by it, while red is the most 'controversial' particularly in the UK where it can drive more than one-in-three people towards extreme responses. 

My previous post spoke about the impact of colour on the decision-making process in general, however, the impact and effect of different colours can also vary markedly between geographic and demographic groups. 

The research points to green being the most persuasive colour, but its actual level of impact differed between countries.  The highest levels of agreement were generated in Germany with 60% of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing with propositions presented in a green font compared with just 45% for the Netherlands. 

While red proved the most 'controversial' colour across all countries (generating the highest levels of extreme views (strong agreement or disagreement)), the levels of extreme responses also differed between countries.  UK respondents returned the highest proportion (with 35% strongly agreeing or disagreeing), compared to just 24% for Italy.

I've had some fun trying to apply a little reasoning to these results; with respect to the impact of the colour green in Germany, 30% of the country is forest and the Greens are one of the major political parties here also.  In light of its potential to generate accord and agreement, perhaps this explains why the German police uniform is green!  The extreme response to the colour red generated by UK respondents could be a legacy of the Cold War and all those Bond movies perhaps! It's no secret that England's most successful football team of recent years seems to generate extreme feelings of love and hate in equal measure and they also play in red!  

The picture becomes even more complex when we look the way different demographic groups reacted to colours.  Gender differences, for instance, revealed themselves in the survey with twice as many men across the entire survey returning an extreme response (24%) compared with 11% for women.  Red proved the most divisive colour for both genders generating strong agreement or disagreement for 34% of men and 24% of women questioned in this colour compared with figures of 16% and 3% men and women respectively when quizzed in black.

So - from my first post - we know that colour can impact people's perception and decision-making process, here we conclude that not all groups react in the same way depending on their geographic and demographic profile.  In short, the impact of colour can be profound but also complex and difficult to predict - it is not simply a question of choosing the right coloured shirt and tie for each audience and each occasion;). 

So what does this mean for businesses?  How can they anticipate and exploit the impact of colour?  We are not suggesting that it is easy or, even, an exact science, but knowing that colour can make a difference to people's perception of a given message should make businesses consider it as a genuine resource.  And like any resource, it should be deployed carefully.  Here are seven 'golden' rules (yes, the use of colour again;)) that organisations of any size can apply to optimise their use of colour:

1. Manage and monitor your use of colour

Consider colour as a resource, whose use of which should be managed and controlled.  There are a range of solutions available for all sizes of organizations (from HP Color Access Control for enterprises to HP Easy Printer Care for SMBs) to apply and optimize their use of colour.

2. Experiment and compare the results using different colours

Not all demographic groups and geographies will respond in the same way to different colours.  Today's printing and digital imaging products enable organizations to implement increasingly targeted and small-run print jobs, even in-house.  Try to experiment with the use of different colours and compare the results to identify the most appropriate combination for each target audience.

3. Take feedback from your audiences

Test your colour campaigns prior to launch with a variety of potential audiences.  Colours carry a range of meanings which may change according to environment and cultural context.  Securing local feedback before 'hitting print' could prove invaluable!

4. Don't restrict yourself to external communications

Colour can be a powerful tool to grab attention and stimulate response both externally and internally; it can - for instance - send a compelling message to employees regarding a company's brand and values.  It can also be used to secure attention and stimulate response and reaction in exactly the same way as with external audiences.

5. Manage your supplies

Your colour strategy will only be as good as the colours at your disposal, and supplies management is absolutely essential in the context of in-house marketing, for instance.  Using HP Web Jetadmin companies can fully automate the supplies monitoring and tracking process to ensure supplies are optimized and always fully available. 

6. Select colours that work across a range of formats (screen/paper/packaging)

Communications campaigns are increasingly integrated across a range of media: print, broadcast, Web and - even - mobile.  Think carefully when selecting colours to ensure that they work across the range of mediums your are planning to use; certain colour tones which send a clear message in print may not necessarily reproduce the same effect on screen.  The surest method is to test and ask the opinion of others before selecting your colour range.

7. Make colour pay

Colour is a resource and the same cost/benefit analyses should be applied as with any other resource.  A range of solutions are available (including HP Web Jetadmin) to help companies quantify and apportion the cost associated with colour printing, these should be used in combination with a company's own data on the success of each marketing campaign.

* Based on research undertaken amongst 2,000 working professionals aged between 16-55 across the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, South Africa and Russia by the independent Web research company, ToLuna. (carried out between 6 and 10 April '09). The survey was based on a series of 'colour-neutral' statements to which respondents indicated their level of agreement, disagreement or indifference.  The statements employed were: "May is my favourite month of the year" and "Today I'm feeling inspired!", with each being presented to identical, separate sample profiles in different colours  and the responses compared.  The response findings for both questions were then averaged to generate the above observations.