Embracing Peach Fuzz

Marketing + the Color of the Year

By Katrina McDowell on Jan 23, 2024 in Marketing, News

Color is a highly influential yet often overlooked element critical in marketing.

Pantone’s color of the year for 2024 is Peach Fuzz, which brings a feeling of kindness, caring and collaboration. Peach Fuzz is poetic and romantic and reflects the past, yet it has been refashioned with a contemporary ambiance that brings beauty into the digital world. Color psychology explores how different colors affect human perception and decision-making in powerful ways that marketers can utilize. Let’s explore the various colors and the psychology behind them to help better target audience and influence marketing campaigns and branding.

Blue and branding. The color blue promotes a sense of trust, calmness, security and reliability. Blue is always a safe choice for interviews and conveys professionalism. Blue is associated with the throat charka functioning with communication, creativity, expression and truth. Many companies rely heavily on different shades of blue in branding and websites to align with their images of dependability and professional authority.

Yellow sparks happiness and energy. The bright and sunny color yellow commands attention by stimulating memory and encouraging communication. Associated with joy and optimism, yellow boosts positivity, sparks imagination and builds confidence. Yellow is associated with the solar plexus charka. It is located just above the navel on the body and functions for expression, accountability and personal power, aligning with the color yellow’s energy. Companies across industries enliven their brands with splashes of yellow to convey happiness, hope and positivity. Many fast-food brands like McDonald’s and Subway integrate yellow prominently in their advertising and restaurants to stimulate appetite and help create an upbeat, family-friendly dining experience. Add splashes of yellow for resident event campaigns to create that same positive and cheerful effect.

Green and organic vibes. The natural color of green induces a strong association with health and renewal. Green is associated with the heart chakra with its perception of trust, compassion, connection and safety. Vibrant green shades represent growth, making green a fitting representative color for financial institutions seeking to convey prosperity and stability. Green’s association with freshness can also prove effective for technology companies aiming to bring forward-thinking and innovative positioning—hence Yardi Breeze!

Spicy red. Red suggests passion and is associated with an increased heart rate. Red captures the attention and conveys confidence. Red often means stop or is used in places we must pay close attention to. When using it in marketing, use it sparingly and choose various shades of red. Red brands come across as energetic and emotional, so red should be avoided for services or products trying to project a calming or peaceful tranquility.

Black and white. Black and white is a classic. Black expresses a powerful, luxurious presence across luxury fashion, technology and other high-end industries. Black is associated with sophistication and exclusivity. Black signals elite status and style. Apple leverages black branding to align its products with cutting-edge innovation and premium artistry. Adding black packaging or displays helps beauty brands and retailers establish an upscale ambiance that attracts affluent audiences. In contrast, white is crisp clean and expresses purity and simplicity. White branding helps evoke feelings of softness and safety. White also embodies modernity and space, making it a popular tech and appliance color. All-white interior design and packaging communicate cool, contemporary appeal for modern brands targeting youthful demographics. Just beware of going entirely white interior design at home since it is unforgiving when hiding stains. Instead opt for a pattern.  

Pantone’s vice president, Laurie Pressman, when referring to Pantone’s color of the year 25^th anniversary, states, “It is our hope that we have inspired you to look at color in a different way — that color and its connection to emotion and the expression of human feelings will take on a new significance, causing your eye to linger a little longer throughout the day on the tints and tones that surround you, as history unfolds from moment to moment.”