Study finds difference between colors South Korean and the U.S. ads.

By Nodoka Fuse

McDonald's, California Pizza Kitchen and Panda Express have a similarity. As you know they are all restaurants, but if you look them more closely, you’ll notice they all use certain colors, yellow and red. Communication major, Na-Hye Kim researched the usage of colors in global advertisement world.

Advertisements in South Korean magazines use more color than those in similar U.S. publications. But, U.S. ads use more “young scheme,” the combination of colors used together to show a mood or emotion.

These significant findings were made in the capstone research thesis submitted as a Communication major by Na-Hye Kim for her graduation in May 2006 with a B.A. from University of Hawaii at Manoa. Originally from South Korea, she is now working at the Honolulu International Film Festival and KBFD (Korean broadcasting company in Honolulu).

Kim’s research is valuable for global advertisers and marketers. Through color theory, she confirmed and extended earlier research showing that different cultures attach different meanings to colors. For example, she wrote, South Korean magazines use more violet, which “is associated with high quality and expensive items in Asian cultures, whereas it means the opposite in American culture.”

The U.S. ads use young scheme

Kim also found that although the U.S. prefers achromatic colors (without color like black, white and silver), the U.S. magazines contain more “young schemes,” which favor extremely bright and powerful primary hues like red and yellow combination with monotonous blacks and whites. She wrote an explanation for the result that “bright colors are highly favored and achromatic colors symbolize positive characteristics in the United States.”

Kim said, “Color helps better communication and persuasion in advertising when it is used skillfully.”

The instructor’s evaluation

The instructor overseeing the project, Jenifer S. Winter, described Kim’s thesis as “ambitious and imaginative.” Winter said Kim’s thesis “successfully bridged theory and practice in an area she is interested in pursuing as a future career.”

How to analyze

To examine different usage of colors, Kim used four gender-specific monthly magazines that targeted the age of 20s to 50s each from South Korea and from the U.S. Kim used only full-sized advertisements about three specific topics -- electronics, cosmetics and cars -- for valid sampling. She classified if the color is chromatic (hues), achromatic, or achromatic with accent color.

To analyze colors, she made a codebook to define categories and color use in each country. Yellow, orange, red, violet, blue, green, black, gray and white were used as basic colors for her codebook.

Literature review

Kim also synthesized an extensive literature review. She found Western cultures prefer achromatic colors and consider them as noble colors. Thus, for example, ads in the magazines from the U.S. used black and white a lot. In contrast, Asian cultures prefer using colors like red, blue or green, which are considered as “pure” in Asia.

She also noted that browns have a good meaning in China, but people in the U.S. and other Asian countries like South Korea and Japan think it is inexpensive.

Yellows are associated with good-tasting foods in the U.S. and Asia — except in China, where red is equivalent of good-tasting foods. Kim wrote those colors make “people feel hungry.”

Conclusion

People get information from seeing, and unconsciously the brain classifies the colors. Therefore, colors are important aspects of communication tools to persuade. Kim said, “People make decisions by colors when they view an attractive and colorful advertisement.”

She added, “’Color’ is the paramount cue in our everyday communication, especially in advertisements, TV commercials, and all of the marketing materials.”