The color associated with a brand, such as its logo, can sway how people perceive the ethics of its environmental actions, a new study finds.
“What we’re finding is that color biases the way consumers make ethical judgements,” says lead researcher Aparna Sundar, professor of marketing at the University of Oregon’s Lundquist College of Business.
“Of course green is one of those colors, but blue is also one of those colors that consumers associate with eco-friendliness.”
In one study, the researchers worked to pinpoint colors that were highly associated with environmentalism. They presented shoppers with a fictitious logo in the color associated with a known brand.
Armed with only an unfamiliar logo, the shoppers in the study considered retailers using Walmart’s blue or Sam’s Club green in their logos to be more eco-friendly than retailers using Trader Joe’s red.
“Interestingly, blue is ‘greener’ than green in terms of conveying an impression of eco-friendliness, despite the frequent use of the word ‘green’ to convey that idea,” says coauthor James Kellaris of the University of Cincinnati.
