Branding and how Psychology plays into it
Psychology plays a huge role in our day-to-day activities without us even realizing that we are being influenced in one way or another. If you are surrounded by blue walls in your creative agency, it is not because of coincidence; Blue is the color that most promotes imagination and creativity. Hence it should come as no surprise that the brands that we interact on a daily basis also have some aspect of psychology embedded within them. This practice of using psychology for branding is known as the psychology of branding.
This practice is usually undertaken by brands that wish to connect to their audience on a more personal level. By doing this they wish to convey that they understand who their audience are, as well as what their value is, and finally what they believe in. All of this at the end is to help increase the loyalty one feels towards the brand. And all successful brands have their own set of loyal fans.
The psychology of branding is not just some random statement, but has verifiable science behind its workings. In here, it shows us how brands use psychology to connect with their customer base in a deeper manner to form effective long-term relations with them.
There are some principles involved in the practice. They are:
• Color Psychology
Color psychology is basically the fact that seeing colors can influence our mood and that different colors can elicit different emotional responses from us. Most of these emotions that would be felt due to a color would be because of a specific culture’s influence on the person that is being influenced by the color themselves. Some major examples for this could be that red as a color elicits feeling of heat as well as emotional response of anger. This is how color psychology comes into play, and brands use this to influence their consumers to usually communicate their values in a more intrinsic manner.
• Pattern Recognition and Consistency
We as humans are inherently wired to recognize patterns and feel at peace with patterns that we see on a regular basis. This is the core of the pattern recognition principle. Here brands repeat a certain pattern all throughout their branding. This helps to increase the brand’s recall value as well as its likability with new consumers. This repetition of pattern can also bring about a sense of trust within the consumers with helps with customer-retention.
• Groups and a sense of belonging
It is a proven statement in psychology that we as humans feel the need to belong somewhere, this is why we as a species have built quite intensive societies. It is this need of ours that brands exploit to help with retention of their customer base. They form in-groups consisting of people with similar ideals and promote them to help retain their consumers. One major example of this would be the in-group of Sneakerheads, first started by the Nike brand. Who came together with ideals of collecting shoes, as well as reselling them among their peers.
• Brand Personas
Prior to beginning the process of branding, a company must first decide upon the persona that they wish to portray to their consumers. This persona then should remain constant throughout their existence as it would play into the pattern recognition and consistence principles.
There are a few personas that have been an industry constant since the beginning, they are:
1. Sincerity: Here the brand portrays themselves out to be family-oriented and kind. One example for a product that could be branded in such a manner would be a band-aid.
2. Excitement: In this form of persona, the company portrays themselves as a youthful and energetic one that is full of a sense of adventure. One example for this from the industry would be the RedBull brand.
3. Ruggedness: Here the brand portrays themselves to be tough as well as rough-around-the-edges. One example from the industry for such branding would be Woodland.
These are just some of the few principles that come into play when psychology is brought into the field of branding. They could be a great starting point for your company if you wish to be a successful one.
