Color in marketing communications: Disscusing the role of color as a mediating variable in the process of communication

In spite of the fact that researching the effect of color in advertising and marketing communications in general is of great importance, the scope of research in this area is surprisingly limited. The primary goal of this paper was to offer some initial insight into the use of color in communication. The goal of research was to analyze the perception of specific colors, while focusing on an association of warm and cold colors with both products and companies. Furthermore, it was aimed at investigating emotional associations of specific colors and the perception of primary, secondary and tertiary colors. Results show that in the process of associating color with companies, pink (magenta) of T-com is the one that clearly stands out. Additionally, results pointed to the fact that certain colors evoke clear positive or negative associations (for example, purple proved to evoke the most negative associations), which confirmed the assumption that the selection of wrong colors in marketing communications can lead to various negative consumer reactions. Finally, the study showed that among all three groups of colors, primary, secondary and tertiary, yellow was always the most noticeable, while blue, purple and blue-purple were the least noticeable. This paper represents an exploratory study in the area of color research in marketing communications. The research described was conducted as part of a bachelor thesis, so the methodology has certain limitations; still, it represents a significant addition to the area in question since there has been virtually no research of this kind in Croatia to date.