Pink Lego? Whatever floats your boat

As we learn more from neuroscience, sociology and behavioural economics, two themes keep appearing that have a major impact on the field of communications and building brands.

The first is that we are, essentially, feelings-driven organisms that simply have the gift of intellect and conscious thought which allows us to post-rationalise our decisions.

The second is that feelings develop pragmatically, intuitively. The more we do something or experience something that’s good for us (ie nurturing, exciting or pleasurable), the more the associations of that experience strengthen in our minds.

So pink has become the colour that little girls – in general in the Western World – aspire to owning. About 200 years ago pink was not specifically a girl’s colour but it has become so via association with things designed to make little girls feel good. Think Barbie, think My Little Pony and now, pink Lego.

And there’s strong evidence that associations with colour can actually be modified. If you take a random sample of people and ask them to rank colours in order of preference and then repeat this exercise having given them coloured drinks that are flavoured (sweet v bitter, for example) it is possible to change their preferences. The associations of bitterness can affect one’s liking of blue, a colour that nearly all of us like. The science supports the notion that little girls are conditioned to like pink, just as they are conditioned through play to be more appreciative of ‘softer’ relationship-based things whereas boys’ games focus them on problem solving and spatial awareness.

Perhaps we are more impressionable than we like to think. And this got me to boats. When I was a boy I was horrified when my father ordered a brand-new Rover 2000 (all the rage in the seventies). There were some cool, groovy colours on offer – all very Biba and Mary Quant. Instead he chose a colour that sat somewhere in the grey-brown spectrum. It was simply the dullest colour I’d ever seen.

I now realise that he chose it because it was the colour of HMS Kenya – a naval cruiser he’d served on in the North Atlantic convoys. In mid-life he chose a colour associated with the heroism, excitement and testosterone of his late 20s. I wish I’d understood that when I was a boy.

Julian Calderara is development director at Seven Stones. [email protected]