The Purpose Behind the Paint: Splashing Color into Black and White Tech World

The launch of Apple’s colorful iPhones and Google’s aqua Home Mini reintroduces an age-old design question: should we risk using a color over a neutral? If Apple and Google’s product lineup is any indicator, the current answer is yes. But if we are, indeed, at the beginning of a new wave of color in the device industry, why now?

2018 has been a year of headaches. Between privacy scandals, data breaches, a backlash against social media addiction and an all-around cacophony of trolls and tweets, it’s hard to look at a phone, app or seemingly innocuous virtual assistant without some apprehension around the wider implications. For consumers, those feelings tend to blend into a homogenized sentiment of general distrust.

Intel’s “Next 50” Study analyzed consumer beliefs on emerging technologies and found that 40 percent of consumers believe future technology can bring just as much harm as good. That kind of thinking can wipe the shine right off of a thoughtfully designed product, a potential buzz kill for the launch of a new device.

Brands might not have control over how consumers use their devices, but they can at least depend on visual aesthetics to help correct a branding narrative gone awry. Stepping outside of the safety zone of commonly accepted neutrals is a surefire way to cultivate a distinct and conspicuous narrative around a product.

Now more than ever, companies are looking at color to function kaleidoscopically, taking into account topics that might not have been their core focus in the past. They’re taking great care to tailor their colors toward the conversations they want people to be having. It’s no coincidence that friendly brights and soothing pastels are being placed with non-controversial neutrals, stimulating a new and needed sense of play, optimism and serenity. Color is taking consumers exactly where they need to go in a time where devices are being viewed as both friend and foe.

The colors that make it onto products are painstakingly curated and crafted, often by entire departments of people, motivating consumers to think, feel and act a certain way. Research on the impact of color in marketing suggests that up to 90 percent of split-second, impulse buys are color-driven. With dropping price points, single-click purchasing and an ever-level playing field, the nature of the traditional impulse buy has evolved substantially, which makes color an even more valuable tool for the electronics industry.

Today, brands are approaching color with intention. They’re using it to help consumers feel instantly at home with a device and to cut through the clutter. Get it right and your product can become the zeitgeist of a generation (hello Apple rose gold). Get it wrong and risk being branded tasteless.

A simple fad or here to stay? We at PPG predict the latter. The world is only getting smarter by the second. Digital appliances. Virtual assistants. Driverless cars. Color can help consumers bridge that awkward get-to-know-you phase and quickly become best friends with their devices. Allison Heape, global color styling manager at PPG Industrial Coatings, is a color-focused leader and coatings industry expert with more than 12 years of commercial color experience in paint, print, color forecasting and consumer trends. Using technical and industry knowledge, she leads a global team of color stylists who identify and create color solutions for a wide range of consumer products with some of the world’s leading brands.