Kiran Khalap of Mumbai’s chlorophyll brand & communications consultancy says, “Colours have meaning only in context and have different meanings in different cultures. Second, colours acquire meaning according to the substrate: a green sari in Maharashtra means newly married, but the same green cloth on a stick means Islam. If colours meant the exact, same thing to many people without context, two of the strongest thirst-quenching brands, Coke and Pepsi, would not have diametrically opposite colours of hot and cold.

“The only scientifically proven association with colour is its physiological impact on human beings: irrespective of race or age, if we are put in a totally white room, our sense of time and space will get distorted.”

Nandkishore S, an art director with a major global advertisement agency, said that in the BFSI space, one must look at the brand’s core value proposition and the thought process behind it. Though blue is the colour of trust, everyone would not use the same colour. A brand’s colour is just the first impression it makes on a consumer’s mind space — nothing more, nothing less. Most banks have a shade of blue in their colour schemes. However, one needs courage to use other colours and yet hold one’s own in the marketplace. The job with such brands which do not use blue is to find a way to convey trust through the chosen colour.

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