【翻譯練習】臉書為什麼是藍色：色彩行銷學
Why Facebook Is Blue: The Science of Colors in Marketing
作者：Leo Widrich
來源：https://buffer.com/resources/the-science-of-colors-in-marketing-why-is-facebook-blue
臉書為什麼是藍色？根據《紐約客》雜誌的報導，原因很簡單：因為馬克．祖克柏有紅綠色盲，所以藍色是祖克柏看得最清楚的顏色。祖克柏這麼說：
這理由不怎麼科學，對吧？雖然這並不是臉書選用藍色的主因，不過還是有些神奇的例子，能夠讓我們一窺色彩如何實際上影響人們的購買決策。
畢竟，視覺是大多數人最靈敏的感官覺受，因此不意外的是，我們在評估是否要試用某個產品時，色彩就占了 90% 的決定成分。
所以，色彩究竟如何產生影響，而色彩行銷學的真面目又是什麼呢？由於我們本身也在努力大幅改善 Buffer 的產品，因此色彩確實是個值得深入瞭解的關鍵議題。我們就來探討一些近期相當有意思的色彩相關研究。
首先，你有辦法光看顏色就認出線上品牌嗎？
在開始研究色彩之前，先看看幾個不可思議的實驗，感受一下光是色彩竟然就有那麼強大的力量。只看這些按鈕的顏色，你能猜出是哪家公司的網站嗎？
例 1 (簡易)：
例 2 (簡易)：
例 3 (中等)：
例 4 (困難)：
這些令人驚嘆的例子是 Youtube 設計師馬克．赫米昂 (Marc Hemeon) 舉出的，我覺得這些例子比任何研究都更能展現色彩的真正實力。
你猜得出幾個呢？(答案在本文最後！)
不同的顏色，引發我們哪些不同的感受？
我們不一定都能明顯意識到某種顏色是透過什麼機制來引發我們的聯想。Logo Company 精闢分析什麼樣的顏色適合什麼樣的公司，下面舉三個很棒的例子：
黑色
特質：確切、信賴、強健、有力、精準、專業、直接、準確
適合產業：營造、商務、石油、金融、流行、製造、美妝、採礦、行銷、貿易
綠色
特質：原始、有機、年輕、養育、教學、教育、冒險、生態、平靜、自然
適合產業：醫療、科學、政府、人才招募、生態、旅遊、人力資源
藍色
特質：可信、平靜、乾淨、專注、醫療、專業、司法、力量、生意
適合產業：醫療、科學、公用事業、政府、健康照護、高科技、人才招募、貿易、法律、資訊科技、牙醫、商務
尤其是注意各大品牌用色的話，會發現它們選擇的顏色很多都更明確傳達了產業的性質。顯然，這些公司的人都希望引發消費者的特定情緒：
另外，色彩尤其會在我們準備下手購物時發揮魔力。有關色彩對於購物決策的影響，分析公司 KISSmetrics 有此高見：
黃色
樂觀與年輕
常用於吸引櫥窗購物者的注意力
紅色
活力
增加心率
營造急迫感
常見於清倉大拍賣
藍色
營造信賴和安全感
常見於銀行與商業界
綠色
財富聯想
眼睛最容易處理的色彩
店家常使用綠色令顧客放鬆
橘色
進取
號召採取行動：訂閱、購買或賣出
粉紅色
浪漫、女人味
用於行銷針對女性和少女的產品
黑色
霸氣、豪華
用於行銷奢華品
紫色
舒緩、平靜
常見於美容或抗老產品
我特別注意到「綠色」是最令人放鬆的色彩．可以用來讓客戶更無負擔地購物。其實我們並沒有刻意選擇綠色當作 Buffer 的主色，不過目前為止綠色似乎功效奇佳。然後我也懂了何以黑色常見於奢華產品，事後想想，原因當然顯而易見。
善用色彩，提升行銷效果
以上種種色彩論述或許很有娛樂性，但我們實際上可以做些什麼，把色彩公式套用在網站或 app 上面呢？KISSmetrics 強者所做的研究，再次提供了答案。
假如 app 主打女性客群，KISSmetrics 的最佳建議是：
假如 app 主打男性客群，遊戲規則就稍為不一樣了：
另一項神奇的實驗中，Performable (現為 HubSpot) 想要得知，單單改變按鈕色彩是否足以影響轉換率 (conversion rate，單次廣告點擊的平均轉換數)。
實驗從一個簡單的假設開始：在二種顏色間 (紅與綠) 選擇，試圖猜測將發生的事。
綠色帶給它們的直覺觀感：
紅色帶給它們的感受比較像是：
因此很明顯地，紅與綠的 A/B 測試結果，應該會是比較友善的綠色勝出，但這只是它們的臆測。實際的實驗長這樣：
實驗結果到底如何？答案比我預期的還要驚人：紅色按鈕的表現比綠色按鈕高出 21%。
最重要的是，除了按鈕色彩以外，其他地方都完全沒更動：
我對這個結果實在納悶不已。假使在這實驗前，我們已先讀遍所有色彩研究，並詢問每位研究者他們認為哪種網頁版本效果應會較優，我敢保證幾乎每個人都會回答綠色。實情卻非如此。
我待的 Buffer 公司也做過幾十次實驗，以瞭解更換色彩是否可以提升轉換率。雖然實驗結果沒有很明確，但還是出現了重大改變。一個假設是，就社群媒體分享工具而言，註冊這件事本來就沒有什麼阻礙，因此也不是很能明顯看出更換色彩的差別。
儘管有那麼多的相關研究，色彩的效果仍然很難一概而論。不管你要換哪種顏色，一開始還是先當成假設就好，再來從實際實驗觀察有效的地方。以我個人來說，我很容易採納從讀過的文章或有印象的研究得出的想法；然而，客觀數據始終比主觀想法高出一等，哪種情況都一樣。
最後小知識：超連結為什麼是藍色？
我一直對這件事很有興趣，而背後的故事確實也很有趣。超連結使用藍色，是因為藍色最能突顯出與網站原始灰色的對比。
完整解釋如下：
(上文題目解答：例 1 Facebook；例 2 Google；例 3 Flickr；例 4 LinkedIn。)
Why is Facebook blue? According to The New Yorker, the reason is simple. It's because Mark Zuckerberg is red-green colorblind. This means that blue is the color Mark can see the best. In his own words Zuck says:
"Blue is the richest color for me; I can see all of blue."
Not highly scientific right? Well, although in the case of Facebook, that isn't the case, there are some amazing examples of how colors actually affect our purchasing decisions.
After all, the visual sense is the strongest developed one in most human beings. It's only natural that 90% of an assessment for trying out a product is made by color alone.
So how do colors really affect us and what is the science of colors in marketing really? As we are also trying to make lots of improvements to our product at Buffer, this was a key part to learn more about. Let's dig into some of the latest, most interesting research on it.
Share stories like this to your social media followers when they're most likely to click, favorite, and reply! Schedule your first post with Buffer.
First: Can you recognize the online brands just based on color?
Before we dive into the research, here are some awesome experiments that show you how powerful color alone really is. Based on just the colors of the buttons, can you guess which company belongs to each of them:
Example 1 (easy):
Example 2 (easy):
Example 3 (medium):
Example 4 (hard):
These awesome examples from Youtube designer Marc Hemeon, I think show the real power of colors more than any study could.
How many were you able to guess? (All the answers are at the bottom of this post!)
How to listen: iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloud | Stitcher | RSS
Which colors trigger which feeling for us?
Being completely conscious about what color triggers us to think in which way isn't always obvious. The Logo Company has come up with an amazing breakdown which colors are best for which companies and why. Here are 4 great examples:
Black:
Green:
Blue:
Especially if we also take a look at what the major brands out there are using, a lot of their color choices become a lot more obvious. Clearly, everyone of these companies is seeking to trigger a very specific emtion:
On top of that, especially when we want to buy something, the colors can play a major role. Analytics company KISSmetrics created an amazing infographic on the science of how colors affect our purchases.
Especially the role of "Green" stands out to me as the most relaxing color we can use to make buying easier. We didn't intentionally choose this as the main color for Buffer actually, it seems to have worked very well so far though.
At second look, I also realized how frequently black is used for luxury products. It's of course always obvious in hindsight. Here is the full infographic:
How to improve your marketing with better use of colors:
This all might be fairly entertaining, but what are some actual things we can apply today to our website or app? The answer comes yet again from some great research done by the good folks over at KISSmetrics.
If you are building an app that mainly targets Women, here is KISSmetrics best advice for you:
Women love: Blue, Purple and Green
Women hate: Orange, Brown and Gray
In case your app is strictly targeting men, the rules of the game are slightly different. Here it goes:
Men love: Blue, Green and Black
Men hate: Brown, Orange and Purple
In another amazing experiment Performable (now HubSpot) wanted to find out whether simply changing the color of a button would make a difference to conversion rates.
They started out with the simple hypothesis of choosing between 2 colors (green and red) and trying guess what would happen.
For green, their intuition was this:
"Green connotes ideas like "natural" and "environment," and given its wide use in traffic lights, suggests the idea of "Go" or forward movement."
For red, their thinking went like this:
"The color red, on the other hand, is often thought to communicate excitement, passion, blood, and warning. It is also used as the color for stopping at traffic lights. Red is also known to be eye-catching."
So, clearly an A/B test between green and red would result in green, the more friendly color to win. At least that was their guess. Here is how their experiment looked like:
So how did that experiment turn out? The answer was more surprising than I had expected:
The red button outperformed the green button by 21%
What's most important to consider is that nothing else was changed at all:
21% more people clicked on the red button than on the green button. Everything else on the pages was the same, so it was only the button color that made this difference.
This definitely made me wonder. If we were to read all the research before this experiment and ask every researcher which version they would guess would perform better, I'm sure green would be the answer in nearly all cases. Not so much.
At my company Buffer, we've also conducted dozens of experiments to improve our conversion rates through changes of colors. Whilst the results weren't as clear, we still saw a huge change. One hypothesis is that for a social media sharing tool, there is less of a barrier to signup, which makes the differences less significant.
Despite all the studies, generalizations are extremely hard to make. Whatever change you make, treat it first as a hypothesis, and see an the actual experiment what works for you. Personally, I'm always very prone to go with opinion based on what I read or research I've come across. Yet, data always beats opinion, no matter what.
Quick last fact: Why are hyperlinks blue?
This is something that always interested me and is actually a fun story. It's to give the best contrast between blue and the original grey of websites:
Here is the full explanation:
"Tim Berners-Lee, the main inventor of the web, is believed to be the man who first made hyperlinks blue. Mosaic, a very early web browser, displayed webpages with a (ugly) gray background and black text. The darkest color available at the time that was not the same as the black text was that blue color. Therefore, to make links stand apart from plain text, but still be readable, the color blue was selected."
I think it is extremely fascinating that simply changing something as small as color can completely chance the outcome of something. What have been your findings in terms of colors and marketing? I'd love your ideas on this.
Solution to the riddle: Example 1: Facebook, Example 2: Google, Example 3: Flickr, Example 4: LinkedIn
Quick note: You can now see exactly how many people clicked, retweeted, liked and shared your Tweets and FB posts with Buffer analytics.
作者：Leo Widrich
來源：https://buffer.com/resources/the-science-of-colors-in-marketing-why-is-facebook-blue
臉書為什麼是藍色？根據《紐約客》雜誌的報導，原因很簡單：因為馬克．祖克柏有紅綠色盲，所以藍色是祖克柏看得最清楚的顏色。祖克柏這麼說：
「我覺得藍色是最豐富的色彩；我可以看出藍色的各種色調。」
這理由不怎麼科學，對吧？雖然這並不是臉書選用藍色的主因，不過還是有些神奇的例子，能夠讓我們一窺色彩如何實際上影響人們的購買決策。
畢竟，視覺是大多數人最靈敏的感官覺受，因此不意外的是，我們在評估是否要試用某個產品時，色彩就占了 90% 的決定成分。
所以，色彩究竟如何產生影響，而色彩行銷學的真面目又是什麼呢？由於我們本身也在努力大幅改善 Buffer 的產品，因此色彩確實是個值得深入瞭解的關鍵議題。我們就來探討一些近期相當有意思的色彩相關研究。
首先，你有辦法光看顏色就認出線上品牌嗎？
在開始研究色彩之前，先看看幾個不可思議的實驗，感受一下光是色彩竟然就有那麼強大的力量。只看這些按鈕的顏色，你能猜出是哪家公司的網站嗎？
例 1 (簡易)：
例 2 (簡易)：
例 3 (中等)：
例 4 (困難)：
這些令人驚嘆的例子是 Youtube 設計師馬克．赫米昂 (Marc Hemeon) 舉出的，我覺得這些例子比任何研究都更能展現色彩的真正實力。
你猜得出幾個呢？(答案在本文最後！)
不同的顏色，引發我們哪些不同的感受？
我們不一定都能明顯意識到某種顏色是透過什麼機制來引發我們的聯想。Logo Company 精闢分析什麼樣的顏色適合什麼樣的公司，下面舉三個很棒的例子：
黑色
特質：確切、信賴、強健、有力、精準、專業、直接、準確
適合產業：營造、商務、石油、金融、流行、製造、美妝、採礦、行銷、貿易
綠色
特質：原始、有機、年輕、養育、教學、教育、冒險、生態、平靜、自然
適合產業：醫療、科學、政府、人才招募、生態、旅遊、人力資源
藍色
特質：可信、平靜、乾淨、專注、醫療、專業、司法、力量、生意
適合產業：醫療、科學、公用事業、政府、健康照護、高科技、人才招募、貿易、法律、資訊科技、牙醫、商務
尤其是注意各大品牌用色的話，會發現它們選擇的顏色很多都更明確傳達了產業的性質。顯然，這些公司的人都希望引發消費者的特定情緒：
黃色
樂觀與年輕
常用於吸引櫥窗購物者的注意力
紅色
活力
增加心率
營造急迫感
常見於清倉大拍賣
藍色
營造信賴和安全感
常見於銀行與商業界
綠色
財富聯想
眼睛最容易處理的色彩
店家常使用綠色令顧客放鬆
橘色
進取
號召採取行動：訂閱、購買或賣出
粉紅色
浪漫、女人味
用於行銷針對女性和少女的產品
黑色
霸氣、豪華
用於行銷奢華品
紫色
舒緩、平靜
常見於美容或抗老產品
我特別注意到「綠色」是最令人放鬆的色彩．可以用來讓客戶更無負擔地購物。其實我們並沒有刻意選擇綠色當作 Buffer 的主色，不過目前為止綠色似乎功效奇佳。然後我也懂了何以黑色常見於奢華產品，事後想想，原因當然顯而易見。
善用色彩，提升行銷效果
以上種種色彩論述或許很有娛樂性，但我們實際上可以做些什麼，把色彩公式套用在網站或 app 上面呢？KISSmetrics 強者所做的研究，再次提供了答案。
假如 app 主打女性客群，KISSmetrics 的最佳建議是：
- 女性喜愛：藍色、紫色、綠色
- 女性厭惡：橘色、棕色、灰色
假如 app 主打男性客群，遊戲規則就稍為不一樣了：
- 男性喜愛：藍色、綠色、黑色
- 男性厭惡：棕色、橘色、紫色
另一項神奇的實驗中，Performable (現為 HubSpot) 想要得知，單單改變按鈕色彩是否足以影響轉換率 (conversion rate，單次廣告點擊的平均轉換數)。
實驗從一個簡單的假設開始：在二種顏色間 (紅與綠) 選擇，試圖猜測將發生的事。
綠色帶給它們的直覺觀感：
綠色令人聯想到「自然」和「環境」，而且因為紅綠燈的普及，綠色也代表著「通行」或向前的動作。
紅色帶給它們的感受比較像是：
紅色常被認為用來傳達興奮、熱情、血液和警告，紅綠燈也以紅色作為停止的號誌。紅色也有吸睛效果。
因此很明顯地，紅與綠的 A/B 測試結果，應該會是比較友善的綠色勝出，但這只是它們的臆測。實際的實驗長這樣：
實驗結果到底如何？答案比我預期的還要驚人：紅色按鈕的表現比綠色按鈕高出 21%。
最重要的是，除了按鈕色彩以外，其他地方都完全沒更動：
點紅色按鈕的人比點綠色按鈕的人多了 21%。網頁其他部分完全一模一樣，因此影響點擊人數的因子，就只是按鈕色彩。
我對這個結果實在納悶不已。假使在這實驗前，我們已先讀遍所有色彩研究，並詢問每位研究者他們認為哪種網頁版本效果應會較優，我敢保證幾乎每個人都會回答綠色。實情卻非如此。
我待的 Buffer 公司也做過幾十次實驗，以瞭解更換色彩是否可以提升轉換率。雖然實驗結果沒有很明確，但還是出現了重大改變。一個假設是，就社群媒體分享工具而言，註冊這件事本來就沒有什麼阻礙，因此也不是很能明顯看出更換色彩的差別。
儘管有那麼多的相關研究，色彩的效果仍然很難一概而論。不管你要換哪種顏色，一開始還是先當成假設就好，再來從實際實驗觀察有效的地方。以我個人來說，我很容易採納從讀過的文章或有印象的研究得出的想法；然而，客觀數據始終比主觀想法高出一等，哪種情況都一樣。
最後小知識：超連結為什麼是藍色？
我一直對這件事很有興趣，而背後的故事確實也很有趣。超連結使用藍色，是因為藍色最能突顯出與網站原始灰色的對比。
完整解釋如下：
「一般認為，網際網路主要發明人提姆．伯納斯-李 (Tim Berners-Lee) 是第一個把藍色用作超連結顏色的人。極早期的網路瀏覽器 Mosaic，網頁背景色是 (難看的) 灰色，文字是黑色。當時所能使用跟文字黑色不一樣的最深顏色，就是藍色。因此，為了在文字中創造出連結的醒目效果，同時兼顧可讀性，於是便選擇藍色作為超連結顏色。」
(上文題目解答：例 1 Facebook；例 2 Google；例 3 Flickr；例 4 LinkedIn。)
Why is Facebook blue? According to The New Yorker, the reason is simple. It's because Mark Zuckerberg is red-green colorblind. This means that blue is the color Mark can see the best. In his own words Zuck says:
"Blue is the richest color for me; I can see all of blue."
Not highly scientific right? Well, although in the case of Facebook, that isn't the case, there are some amazing examples of how colors actually affect our purchasing decisions.
After all, the visual sense is the strongest developed one in most human beings. It's only natural that 90% of an assessment for trying out a product is made by color alone.
So how do colors really affect us and what is the science of colors in marketing really? As we are also trying to make lots of improvements to our product at Buffer, this was a key part to learn more about. Let's dig into some of the latest, most interesting research on it.
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First: Can you recognize the online brands just based on color?
Before we dive into the research, here are some awesome experiments that show you how powerful color alone really is. Based on just the colors of the buttons, can you guess which company belongs to each of them:
Example 1 (easy):
Example 2 (easy):
Example 3 (medium):
Example 4 (hard):
These awesome examples from Youtube designer Marc Hemeon, I think show the real power of colors more than any study could.
How many were you able to guess? (All the answers are at the bottom of this post!)
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Which colors trigger which feeling for us?
Being completely conscious about what color triggers us to think in which way isn't always obvious. The Logo Company has come up with an amazing breakdown which colors are best for which companies and why. Here are 4 great examples:
Black:
Green:
Blue:
Especially if we also take a look at what the major brands out there are using, a lot of their color choices become a lot more obvious. Clearly, everyone of these companies is seeking to trigger a very specific emtion:
On top of that, especially when we want to buy something, the colors can play a major role. Analytics company KISSmetrics created an amazing infographic on the science of how colors affect our purchases.
Especially the role of "Green" stands out to me as the most relaxing color we can use to make buying easier. We didn't intentionally choose this as the main color for Buffer actually, it seems to have worked very well so far though.
At second look, I also realized how frequently black is used for luxury products. It's of course always obvious in hindsight. Here is the full infographic:
How to improve your marketing with better use of colors:
This all might be fairly entertaining, but what are some actual things we can apply today to our website or app? The answer comes yet again from some great research done by the good folks over at KISSmetrics.
If you are building an app that mainly targets Women, here is KISSmetrics best advice for you:
Women love: Blue, Purple and Green
Women hate: Orange, Brown and Gray
In case your app is strictly targeting men, the rules of the game are slightly different. Here it goes:
Men love: Blue, Green and Black
Men hate: Brown, Orange and Purple
In another amazing experiment Performable (now HubSpot) wanted to find out whether simply changing the color of a button would make a difference to conversion rates.
They started out with the simple hypothesis of choosing between 2 colors (green and red) and trying guess what would happen.
For green, their intuition was this:
"Green connotes ideas like "natural" and "environment," and given its wide use in traffic lights, suggests the idea of "Go" or forward movement."
For red, their thinking went like this:
"The color red, on the other hand, is often thought to communicate excitement, passion, blood, and warning. It is also used as the color for stopping at traffic lights. Red is also known to be eye-catching."
So, clearly an A/B test between green and red would result in green, the more friendly color to win. At least that was their guess. Here is how their experiment looked like:
So how did that experiment turn out? The answer was more surprising than I had expected:
The red button outperformed the green button by 21%
What's most important to consider is that nothing else was changed at all:
21% more people clicked on the red button than on the green button. Everything else on the pages was the same, so it was only the button color that made this difference.
This definitely made me wonder. If we were to read all the research before this experiment and ask every researcher which version they would guess would perform better, I'm sure green would be the answer in nearly all cases. Not so much.
At my company Buffer, we've also conducted dozens of experiments to improve our conversion rates through changes of colors. Whilst the results weren't as clear, we still saw a huge change. One hypothesis is that for a social media sharing tool, there is less of a barrier to signup, which makes the differences less significant.
Despite all the studies, generalizations are extremely hard to make. Whatever change you make, treat it first as a hypothesis, and see an the actual experiment what works for you. Personally, I'm always very prone to go with opinion based on what I read or research I've come across. Yet, data always beats opinion, no matter what.
Quick last fact: Why are hyperlinks blue?
This is something that always interested me and is actually a fun story. It's to give the best contrast between blue and the original grey of websites:
Here is the full explanation:
"Tim Berners-Lee, the main inventor of the web, is believed to be the man who first made hyperlinks blue. Mosaic, a very early web browser, displayed webpages with a (ugly) gray background and black text. The darkest color available at the time that was not the same as the black text was that blue color. Therefore, to make links stand apart from plain text, but still be readable, the color blue was selected."
I think it is extremely fascinating that simply changing something as small as color can completely chance the outcome of something. What have been your findings in terms of colors and marketing? I'd love your ideas on this.
Solution to the riddle: Example 1: Facebook, Example 2: Google, Example 3: Flickr, Example 4: LinkedIn
Quick note: You can now see exactly how many people clicked, retweeted, liked and shared your Tweets and FB posts with Buffer analytics.
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