National Colors: What colors are most popular by country.

[AussieWebmaster]

I am interested in getting feedback from all international marketers of the color sets that seem to be most popular by country.
I have noticed that Asian sites have a preference for pastels. Pink, green and yellow seem to predominate.
As an exercise if anyone has noticed other national or continent preferences can you post them here so we can develop a list of them for everyone's reference.
The US seems to like darker solid colors from my experience: like Royal Blues, Silvers and Golds.

[mcanerin]

One color that seems universally disliked in website is purple - it appears to cross most boundries.

The combination of red, white and blue appears to be very popular with small and mid-sized sites - especially sales oriented ones based in the US.

Ian

[AussieWebmaster]

One color that seems universally disliked in website is purple - it appears to cross most boundries.

The combination of red, white and blue appears to be very popular with small and mid-sized sites - especially sales oriented ones based in the US.

Ian
Is this international... are there any countries that do not follow this?

[mcanerin]

The purple, or the red, white, and blue?

There have been many independant studies on purple - for some reason it's not very popular. I personally like it as a color, but would not use it as a prominent website color - which is the point. There are several different theories as to why, but the basic fact seems pretty accepted, and it appears to apply to almost every country and culture. One common explanation is that since the eye focuses on red and blue differently (they are on opposite sides of the spectrum) that it's uncomfortable to focus on purple (the combination of red and blue) for long periods of time.

As for red, white and blue - it's a lot more cross border. As a Canadian I notice it's extensive use in American advertising perhaps more clearly than those who are born and raised surrounded by it.

Take another close look at those sites you are taking about with strong colors of blue, silver and gold - is their main target audience US citizens, or are they more international in focus? I'll bet the latter. I don't think the choice is random.

Here is another interesting factoid about red, white and blue - did you know that almost every country in the world has one of those colors in it's flag? It's pretty cross border. The flags of Britain and France jump immediately to mind.

There is also the very real issue of people having personal preferences - if the CEO likes purple, then the site may be purple for that reason, and that reason only. Additionally, a company may choose a color scheme that is their second choice but is different from a major competitor that is established, without any thought to color psychology.

And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar ;)

Ian

[Kal]

I'd always heard that the Chinese like red, because it is considered good luck. Feng Shui practice backs this up

[AussieWebmaster]

I'd always heard that the Chinese like red, because it is considered good luck. Feng Shui practice backs this up
I have noticed the same thing... I just thought it was part of the whole red as the communist color thing...

[Jorge]

The red color symbolizes good luck in Chinese culture, it is as old as their culture (which is a few thousand years older than ours). Popular corporate colors in Spain are orange and grey and a combination of both, and light blue.

[kenpomachine]

I think it goes most on the corporate colors, at least for the big companies here in Spain. Which should mean white with green (even going as far as a yellowish green) and/or blue (not light but solid): Telefónica, most of the banks to some degree or other, newspapers, ecommerce sites...

One of the reasons could be that blue is associated with seriouseness.

Orange for sites like Terra, Orange, Winterthur, Easy Jet, red for Vodafone, Ferrari...