If you want to sell a sports car, think red. If carpeting provides your bottom line, bank on beige. If you like to stay ahead of the curve, invest in a hot shade of teal. If you`d rather play it safe, blue will keep most products in the pink. But, if you hope to sell anything at all, beware of a sulphurous shade of yellow-green. Consumers pick up this hue and cry, don`t buy.
Such are some of the tony tidbits dispensed by the new Pantone Consumer Color Preference Study released at a news conference here Friday.
The study, the first of its kind to examine color preferences not only in terms of demographics but also lifestyle segments, analyzes current and future color trends. Conducted by the Pantone Color Institute, a New Jersey-based international color consultancy to designers, manufacturers and consumers, and the Cooper Marketing Group, a Chicago firm specializing in consumer products, the study covered 25 key categories in apparel, home furnishings and automobiles.
Conducted during January and February, the survey contacted a statistically balanced sample of 5,000 people, each of whom received a questionnaire and a chart of 109 numbered colors drawn from the 1,701 specific shades that comprise Pantone`s Textile Color System.
Color is typically one of the top three factors governing most purchases and may even be the motivating factor, according to Mimi Cooper, vice president and a principal in Cooper Marketing, the firm that designed and executed the study.
”One of the reasons this research could only be done with Pantone is because they have this color system,” said Cooper. By presenting the respondents with actual colors-neutral numbers substituting for Pantone`s possibly suggestive descriptors-vague consumer descriptions were eliminated and the entire sample could, in effect, speak a common color language, she said.
The 3,370 respondents were fairly evenly spread in terms of geographic region, age groups, income brackets and education levels achieved. Fifty-two percent were women, and 48 percent were men.
The overall favorite color, hands down, is blue. The most popular blue was an inky shade that Pantone calls ”limoges,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. The most-hated color, by far, is a sickly yellow-green Pantone appropriately calls ”sulphur.” ”As a color psychologist, I can tell you this is the color most associated with nausea, or, as one client put it, squished caterpillars,” said Eiseman. Neon orange is also a no-no.
The big news, however, is in the forecasted color of the future: teal, a commingling of blue and green. ”In every category, blue-green is coming up,” said Cooper, whose research shows the color becoming particularly popular in clothing, towels, tabletop accessories and autos.
Right behind teal is a growing demand for colors in the red-violet range, such as fuchsia and magenta, which is forecast as the coming trend in swimwear and neckties.
In a new twist in color research, Pantone and Cooper, working with the answers to 70 questions geared to shopping habits, came up with five broad consumer types and color profiles.
”Prudent” people, illustrated at the news conference by a photo of President Bush, are the list-makers and comparison shoppers. They plan for everything, stick to their budgets and tend to be the kind of people who would buy you tube socks for Christmas. With an average age of 42, median income of $37,000, two-thirds of this group have one or more years of college. You can spot them by their favorite colors: navy, light blue, clear pink and, somewhat surprisingly, the cutting-edge color of the moment, teal.
They may sound boring, but prudent people could become the most influential consumer group in the `90s, according to Cooper. ”What I find interesting, from a marketing point of view, is that the prudent segment is growing because of the economy, even among people in the higher-income segment,” she said, noting that the prudent group could displace the
”impulsive” and ”confident” groups as the darlings of marketers.
If ”impulsive” people ever make a shopping list, they rarely consult it and almost never concern themselves with comparison prices. Shopping adventurers, they blithely set off without budgets and come home with surprise purchases, large and small. Two-thirds of them have some college education. With an average age of 43 and a median income of $35,000, they share an affinity for black, gray, royal blue and a shade of neon red-orange called Firewater.
A rather depressing color duet of lavender and brown characterizes the
”pessimistic” among us. Typically, insecure homebodies with heavy debts and heavier hearts, this gloomy group is the least-educated-two-thir ds have no college-level education-and the least well-off, with a median income of $25,000. Their average age is 51.
”Traditional” people, epitomized by the Prince of Wales in Pantone`s presentation, are rarely in debt, but rarely splurge on themselves. Put off by the new and the different, ”this is the person who is replacing the polyester pants with new polyester pants,” said Cooper. And, chances are, those pants will be in clear pink, rose, sky blue or white. This segment, half of which have some college education, earns a median income of $28,000 and has an average age of 58.
The outgoing, optimistic, open-to-change high-rollers of the survey are the ”confident” people, curiously represented in Pantone`s presentation by a photo of Anthony Hopkins, a film actor best-known for his cannibalistic performance in ”The Silence of the Lambs.”
Free-spending and fashion-forward, they serve as trendsetters and product consultants for their friends. The survey`s best-educated-three-quar ters of them have one or more years of college-and wealthiest-a median income of $50,000-segment, the average age is 44.
The confident man, for example, will wear a charcoal-gray suit, a boldly striped shirt, a tie that combines black with a strong color, like a plummy-rose, and he`ll carry a black briefcase.
His prudent, traditional or pessimistic counterpart will show up carrying a brown briefcase and wearing a light-gray suit, a pale-blue shirt and probably a tie of blue or black combined with red, the overall favorite tie color combos.
In the home, blue reigns overall, specifically a shade of steel blue called ”Shadow Blue.”
Beige, particularly a toasted almond tone, is the next big favorite in living rooms and bedrooms, particularly in carpeting and wallcoverings.
The forecast, however, calls for warm pastels in the pink-gray range, according to the study. Yellows will remain hot in the kitchen.
And, in the bathroom, light and dusty blues dominate, but the future belongs to watery shades of misty green and aquamarine.
Even more intimately, in underwear, white is tops with everyone. Interestingly, although no respondents reported buying red underwear for themselves, all respondents reported it as being, in varying degrees, a color they`d prefer for their significant other.
As for setting the tone in the home, most young men, the survey said, aim for ”sexy,” while older women try for ”inviting,” said Cooper.
If you`re wondering what specific colors people believe conjure up a sexy atmosphere at home, you`ll have to buy the book-there probably won`t be a movie and Pantone and Cooper won`t tell. After all, the study is being sold for $500 a copy-$1,000 for the unabridged raw-data version-and the operative color here is a shade Pantone calls ”Juniper,” otherwise known as the color of money.
