The one visual brand element that matters most when shopping
Standing out is key, especially in a retail environment, which is cluttered not only with other products, but also other people, objects such as trolleys, and every other distraction that stands between the buyer and the brand.
This means that being easy to find is the most important thing you can do for your brand, especially in a shopping environment where we’re mentally operating with partial attention—desiring to shop quickly and be done with it. In a series of in-store tests (Gaillard, Sharp & Romaniuk, 2006; Piñero et al.,2010), buyers were asked to identify brands that stood out on the shelf.
It turns out that colour, by a staggering 52%, came out as the most important element that makes a brand stand out on the shelf. A key reason for the effectiveness of colour is that it’s the only thing our eyes can take in when scanning a scene without focusing on anything specific (Wedel & Pieters, 2006). With colour comprising just over half of the buyer’s responses, it highlights the importance of developing a distinct colour asset to create recognition.
The brands that have the best chance of getting noticed are the ones that are visible from a distance—and as research shows, colour is, bar none, the most important visual brand element to give your product a fighting chance of being noticed and bought.
