Brands can explore new opportunities for using color to stand out and drive engagement which plays a key role in capturing consumer attention as the world grapples with uncertainty and volatility, according to the world’s leading consumer trend forecaster.
Candice Medeiros, strategist at WGSN, said factors driving disruption, including rising inflation and the climate crisis, have reshaped shopper priorities, driving emotionally charged purchasing that is increasingly driven by status and cultural clout.
“Retailers should forge more meaningful relationships with their customers by anchoring their brand in a color narrative to create familiarity and rhythm in expectations,” she said in a sample report.
Medeiros said they can reinforce consistency by using your brand's hero colors as a status signifier.
“Color that extends beyond seasonal categories, packaging or store design alone will be imperative to support a retailer's identity and enforce its archetype. Use color on a large scale and with authority, creating over-the-top popups, window displays and merchandising. Experiment with large swathes of monocolor rather than mixing several tones together,” she said.
Amid an era of rapid change, Medeiros said brands should enforce color as an extension of intellectual property, helping drive cultural capital and offering memorable consistency.
She also advised them to focus on the physiological and symbolic impacts of color –tones that can calm, energize or even unite individuals– which will appeal to a growing number of consumers with new chronic emotional perspectives and realizations.
Medeiros said that with 90 percent of WGSN survey respondents reporting that color impacts their mood, brands should harness color's emotional power to uplift and engineer glimmers into people's lives.
She said like triggers, glimmers are personal and mood-based, and can be anything from hearing one’s favorite song playing to seeing a vibrant flower among a group of sidewalk weeds.
“Tap into mood-based store design to build larger-than-life experiences that jolt customers with awe or subliminal recognition. The intensity of recent times has also heightened our emotional awareness, crystallizing the important role that brands play in consumer well being. Lean into color theory, using it (to) promote wellness via joy-sparking dopamine brights or stress-relieving rainbow colors in VM and store design,” she added.
Source: PHILEXPORT News and Features
December 12, 2023
