Colour use: interpretation hidden in plain sight

“On the one hand the connection of meaning and colour seems obvious, natural nearly; on the other hand, it seems idiosyncratic, unpredictable, and anarchic” (Kress

& Van Leeuwen, 2002:343). When colour is discussed as a semiotic resource, it becomes multifunctional. According to Kress and Van Leeuwen, this is because of the contrasts in the meaning of colour. For example, in most parts of Europe, black is

worn as the colour of mourning, yet in northern Portugal and other parts of Europe brides wear black on their wedding day (ibid.).

In studies relating to how consumers perceive products, Proust and Di Folco(2014) found that colour has more than just aesthetic value. According to them, it can tell stories; influence the cognition and behaviour of the people that view them and are often perceived as the key factor in consumer perception of brands.

One focus group echoed the belief that colour symbolism could both add to and detract from the meaning of a billboard. “There can be no universals in how people habitually think and talk about colour, given that in many languages people do not talk about colour at all” (Wierzbicka, 2008:3). In this focus group discussion however, the use of colour seemed to influence respondents’ interpretation of the message.

Figure 5.1: No Pressure (loveLife, 2003)

Female participant 1 (Group B): And purple is a weird colour (laughter) Facilitator: Why is purple a weird colour?

Female participant 1 (Group B): Because… Purple is, wait, let me put it [now] in our terms, its uhm…it’s… we frustrated sexually.

Here the association is sexual frustration, which together with the copy led to multiple interpretations by the group. This is because the copy (the text) and the colour of the billboard were interpreted separately and differently. When asked why purple means sexually frustrated, the same focus group participant responded:

Female participant 1 (Group B):: Probably the teacher, [who] always used to talk about colours and how they are used to explain life. How we are like, yellow is jealousy and

although I love yellow and I’m not a jealous person. Black was always brought to us as death moods [representations], red was for hunger and love.

While purple was brought across as being a colour for frustration. He [the teacher] always used the examples of how clinics use the colour purple on their posters. How purple is dark and gloomy and he always thought that sexual frustration is one of the frustrations and because most of the kids use that expression.

In the example above, the participant says that she was exposed to the colour purple on clinic posters and she had derived meaning from the colour due to its use on certain types of media. This statement is reminiscent of Eco’s writing where he says that a sign only becomes fully meaningful when the greater context is placed (Eco, 1981). Furthermore, researchers have found that the impact of colour is attributed to the wide range of colour associations, in which colour is related to a representation of items or representations of as a symbol or a sign. For example, red is a symbol of

“good luck” in China and red means “stop” as a traffic signal (LoBlue & Deloache, 2011).

According to LoBlue and Deloache (2011), researchers have long examined the developments of gender-stereotyped behaviour in children. These include predilection for pink and blue; they believe it occurs due to gender-stereotyped colour application in infancy being so prevalent that, “infants develop a preference for these familiar colours as they grow older” (LoBlue & Deloache, 2011:657).

Figure 5.2: Too smart for just anybody (loveLife, 2003)

The focus groups varied in their interpretation of this billboard in relation to colour usage. Either it had no effect on how it was interpreted, or it was the defining factor as to who the intended target audience was.

Female participant 2 (Group B): It’s not really eye catching.

Female participant 4 (Group B):Pink, my favourite colour.

Facilitator: Who do you think this billboard was made for?

Female participant 4 (Group B): Girls, cause I’m thinking about the pink.

Female participant 6 (Group B): Not necessarily, no…men also wear pink.

Kress and Van Leeuwen (2002) argue that the meaning of colour depends on the association with that colour. They elaborate that colour can have an association with other colour connections or bearers. “Green, for instance, can be associated with the fields in which cows ‘chew the cud’ – or with the unhealthy pallor of a sick person, and doubtless with many other things as well” (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2002:354). Colour in these instances becomes a message in itself, lending itself to multiple interpretations, conveying emotion and even distracting from the intended message.

According to Lee et al. (2014), it is rare to view content in black-white (BW) format in the twenty-first century because all forms of mainstream media are in full colour.

According to their research, there is no detectable difference in the emotional experience between exposure to BW and colour images, however in this example when the colours are combined, it added to the message interpretation (Lee. et al., 2014).

Figure 5.3: I won’t quit my time is now (loveLife, 2012)

Female participant 4 (Group B): Now look at that hey, this picture is in black and white, the words are black, maybe his walking towards colour.

Facilitator: Ok, but what does that mean, walking towards colour?

Female participant 6 (Group B): a brighter future.

Many factors make it difficult for firms to identify brand image strategies to have global appeal or in the case of South Africa, national appeal. Such factors include

cultural and social economic differences. To add to this, the meaning of colour and preference change over time. Colour consultants predict trends and set short- and long-term colour forecasts, which marketing managers can use to adapt their different communications. However, these forecasts are influenced by social, political, economic, cultural, and technological societies (Proust & Di Folco, 2014).