Avoid alienating customers by learning colors’ meanings

Time to learn your colors again!

If you plan to do business overseas, using the wrong colors to advertise your organization and your products could offend your target market and negatively impact your bottom line.

For example, the use of white in the U.S. commonly means purity, while its use in China means mourning. Additionally, if a company uses green to promote its environmentally friendly products, it should find a different color for the Egyptian market, which views green as a sacred color that should not be used on packages and campaigns.

So make sure your graphic design department has access to international color guides and alternate color palettes; your choice of color could make or break your next international marketing campaign!

On a side note, remember to never place green text on a red background nor vice versa; nearly one-tenth of males have red-green color blindness and can’t distinguish the difference between the two colors, making your intended message meaningless!

Read this article for more examples and for links to international color guides: Color meanings can be lost and found in translation