Investigations on the use of color in the marketing of milling products

A brand may be achieved in words or in combined pictures. It is noted that the brands represented in words are used more often because it is easier to read and memorize them. Besides the brand symbol, the color is certainly the second important item in identifying the packaging in the international context.

Certain studies have suggested the significant influence that color has on behavior. Harry Wohlfarth, Catharine Sat on the one hand, Rose H. Alschuler and Berta Weiss Hattwick on the other hand, showed the significant influence that color has on children’s behavior.

Choku Akashi (1986) demonstrated by the results of his research, that red is often perceived as being active and in certain circumstances, it may be correlated with aggressiveness. Faber Birren associated the division of spectrum in warm and cold colors with human personality [4]. Red colors tend to increase muscle tension, stimulate the autonomic nervous system, while green and blue relax the tension. These direct connections exist between brain and body, reactions taking place independently of thought or deliberation. (Birren ’55). Similarly, Jaensch found that people can be grouped into two categories: those who are more sensitive to the hot end of the solar spectrum and those who are more sensitive to the cold end.

Experiments carried out by Newton and confirmed by the Young-Helmholtz theory, showed that retina of human eye contains three types of cone receptors, each being sensitive to a certain range of waves of light: Long or Red receptors (sensitive to red light, which have long wavelengths, 500nm-700nm), Green or Middle receptors (sensitive to green light, with average wavelengths of 450nm-630nm) and Blue or Short receptors (sensitive to blue light with short wavelengths, 400nm-500nm).

In practice, the description of any color in the visible spectrum means its notation, representation or specification by three numerical color parameters, which define a set of tristimulus values, as color perception in the human brain is determined by three types of sensitive to light receptors, which transmit three signals to the brain for each color in sight. A tristimulus value, directly or indirectly expresses the extent to which primary RGB colors combine to form a new color, and implicitly the characteristics of those color stimuli which are sensitive to SML wavelengths, corresponding to these primary color components.

The additive RGB color model is defined on the property of different wavelengths light radiations to combine additively, in order to form a new color; the model is called additive color model. Any combination of light radiations falling directly on the human eye can be described by the additive RGB color model; that is why this model is used by most light emitting equipments for determining the values (R, G, B), which compose each reproduced color.

The most common implementation method of the additive RGB color model, used since 2006 for PC monitors, has 24 color bits and 8 color / pixel bits, or 256 digital levels / channel (28 = 256); that is the reason why the number of possible colors that may be represented by this model is limited to 256G x 256B x 256R = 16.7 million colors, which is approximately the number that human eye can distinguish.

The main objective of our research is the analysis of how color is used in the communication strategies of milling companies on the Romanian market (print ads, posters, presentation websites), and how the color is promoted in the structure of certain aesthetic and design elements of marketed products packaging.

44 representative packages for the range of flours available on the Romanian market, and 31 formal presentations (advertisements in written press, as well as the first page of the presentation site) have been scanned, and the images have been processed by means of a specialized computer software (ImageJ), in order to analyze how color is used in the structure of certain elements of packaging aesthetic and design, but also in the communication strategies of companies.

Our results showed that as regards the colors used in making packaging, the most common colors are based on red. The color red has been used mostly in the forms of communication based on printing or online (posters, advertisements, home site). In case of packaging, the use of colors has been achieved following models that include clear pairs: red – green or green – blue, while in formal presentations the amount of red increases with the amount of blue and green, the amount of blue increases with red and green, and the amount of green increases with red and blue.

There has also been evidenced another significant trend, namely the shades of blue decreasing with turnover increasing. Otherwise, companies with higher turnovers used smaller amount of colors based on blue in the color composition of packaging, and even smaller quantities of green. The colors which have been least affected by the turnover value were those based on red.

Full article: v10i1