INTRODUCTION
According to Lindstrom M. (2005) Sight is the most seductive sense of all. It often overrules the other senses, and has the power to persuade us against all logic. Kauppinen (2010) described in his article that packaging appearance has a significant influence on consumers buying.Companies try to offer services and products in such kinds of packaging, which can increase the followers of their offering by the help of packaging and quality, color is one of the most important parts of packaging. Lindstrom M. has also mentioned that 80% of the people tend to remember the image of the brand and color is highly influential part of the image.
Kauppinen (2010) further described that review of extant marketingresearch reveals that package colors have two additional functions: colors attract attention (Grimes and Doole, 1998 cited in
Kauppinen 2010), and consumers use colors as stimulus-based information (Garber et al., 2000a cited in Kauppinen 2010).
Since we have noticed from previous and current research that color is highly influential and further in this report we will study on how the marketers have used colors in their marketing strategies. We will analyze their connection of color to marketing strategies and will conclude with our findings in this area.
BACKGROUND
Kauppinen H. and Luomala H. (2010) revealed in their research that colors communicate meanings about the attributes of the product and consumption related consequences that are linked to the benefit of the product.
Producers of school supplies, such as Mead and Pentel, believe that color is the product variable that attracts consumers and allows consumers to make fashion statements. Knowledge of consumers’ color preferences is consequential because marketers who recognize which colors in their lines sell best may be able to trim product offerings and reduce manufacturing costs (Trent,
1993).Color can stimulate emotional response, affect persuasiveness, reflect prestige, and color can certainly affect a consumer’s overall perception of a product as said by Paul S. & Okan A.
(2010)
Color is such a product variable that has various impacts on the overall personality of the product. It has been used as the premium tool for attracting the customer. It makes its impression in the mind of customer as he looks on the product before even using it. The customers as it have long used it for making fashion statements and it depicts the taste and choice of the user. It has great deal of impact on trimming the product line by the producers if they get to know about the color choices of the customers and associations. This feature greatly affects the pricing strategy as they can reduce the prices by knowing the tendency of consumer’s likes and dislikes.

The role of design has changed, and nowadays it is regarded as a key marketing element (Bloch et al., 2003; Creusen and Schoormans, 2005 cited in Kauppinen 2010). However Kauppined
(2010) argued that very few studies are focused to find the connection between color preference and product type. Although he states that most preferred color in clothing are blue, red and black whereas the blue red, white, grey and white are favorite in cars.
Funk D. & Ndubisi N. (2006) argues that color preferences depend on the situation and the underlying associations that people have developed whereas Grossman and Wisenblit, 1999 mentioned that understanding of consumer’s attitude towards color might help to prevent marketers from wasting time and energy chasing the latest trend.
ANALYSIS
“There are many examples of associative learning principles in thecolor literature and practitioners who understand the paradigm may be able tomake better color decisions regarding aspects of the marketing mix.” (Grossman & Wisenblit 1999).
Means of Brand Association
According to Grimes A. & Doole I. (1998), colors have different impact on the brand. Withthe associations of the consumer, companies through their communications have developed different physiological perceptions into their minds. By the passage of time, they start associating the brand with different colors. Such as Marlboro, Kodak,Guinness and Cadbury have chosen red, yellow, black and purple colors for their brands respectively. They have communicated different associations into the minds of their consumers with respect of the color and brand. For example,
Marlboro’s red color is a symbol of adventure, sexiness,cool look, passion and style although cigarettes have harmful effects and cause cancer but they have communicated their brand in such a way that their red color provoke their consumers to have cool style. So the multinational brands such as described in below table uses color to portray their self image.
Company
Guinness
Marlboro
Kodak
Cadbury
Color
Black
Red
Yellow
Purple
Color Association Brand Association
Expensive, high tech, high quality
,old , reliable , serious , male , serious
Masculine , modern ,young , cool
Quiet ,secretive , mysterious
Expensive. High quality, premium, good tasting, young, warm,
dangerous, fun, loud
Expensive, life, love, passion
Pre, fresh , playful , expensive,
Reliable , light
Cool sexy , wild , adventurous
, rough , strong
Masculine ,mature, creative, warm
,friendly ,colorful and intelligent
Expensive ,luxurious , good tasting , warm and to some extent female
,death , dignity , power and passion
Beautiful , sexy , luxurious , stylish
, expensive , famine smooth , silky , high in reliability ,quality and class

Cross cultural variation:
Color associations are somehow similar across the cultures as the analysis of Marlboro, BP and
Guinness were almost same in UKand Taiwan with the little difference in people’s opinion but over all people got the same affiliation with respect to the colors.Grimes A. &Doole I. (1998).
However previous studies have also shown that meaning of color differentiates from one country/culture to the other as Paul S. & Okan A. (2010) presented in their article about cross cultural marketing perspective w.r.t. color. Although the research by Grimes A. & Doole I. studies the perception of renowned brands in different cultures and found very few differences but these brands have understood the meaning of color in various countries as other should. As
Paul S. & Okan A. (2010) mentioned that Marketers must be well-informed and flexible enough to understand that colors do not have universal meanings and associations such as the below examples mentioned in his article.
WHITE: Symbolizes mourning or death in East Asia, but happiness and purity in Australia,
New Zealand and USA
BLUE: The most popular and most common corporate color in the U.S. is perceived as cold and evil in East Asia but stands for warmth in the Netherlands; interestingly coldness in Sweden; death in Iran and purity in India. Blue denotes femininity in Belgium and the Netherlands, but masculinity in Sweden and the USA
GREEN: Represents danger or disease in Malaysia, envy in Belgium, love and happiness in
Japan and sincerity, trustworthiness and dependability in China.
RED Means unlucky in Nigeria and Germany, but lucky in China, Denmark and Argentina. It reflects ambition and desire in India and love in China, Korea and Japan
YELLOW: Represents warmth in the USA, but infidelity in France. It is associated with jealousy in Russia, but pleasant, happy, good taste, royalty in China. In Brazil purple and yellow are perceived as symbolic of sorrow and despair.
PURPLE : Purple is the color of love in China and South Korea. Anger and envy in Mexico, sin and fear in Japan. Purple is considered expensive in China also. Many studies have attempted to evaluate the interaction between color and product, or packaging and product (woe to the grocery store that instead of clear cellophane would use a green shade to package their red meats).
Asset & Competency
When the company is focusing on international marketing strategies they use all their possible assets and competencies in international competition. Considering the example used by
Lindstrom M. (2010), Coke is more strongly associated with the color red than Pepsi is with blue. There is no doubt that throughout the years Coca-Cola Company has done a great job of establishing red as the color associated with their brand and that this helps provide a recognition advantage over Pepsi and it helps to create the perception that the brand is distinctive and

different. So it would be incorrect to say that color plays as an asset of the company to distinguish them from competitors and provide a competitive advantage to the firm. The study also reveals that touch does not play a stronger role in the brand sense as few people tends to remember the glass bottle. This can vary with the type of the product. As the clothing products may have a high sense of touch/feel through which people recognize the brand. Nevertheless sight remains the most attractive tool to draw customer’s attention.
Aesthetic Appeal
Products should give an esthetic appeal to customers and should not be designed just for the functional needs as Kauppinen (2010) said that products with high aesthetic appeal are preferred over others having low visual appeals and color is most essential means to create aesthetic experience. It can be views in various products such as watches, where alluring colors are used to provoke the customer desires.
Colors as conveyors of communication
Color research support that they infer product quality and product meanings (Funk and Ndubisi,
2006; Garber et al., 2000a cited in Kauppinen, 2010). As shown in the table previously the brands communicate their different meanings using their color as a primary source. Marlboro conveys its image of young, premium, adventurous and passionate sense through red color which portrays the same meaning. To differentiate in the product line companies use different colors to associate with different feel and experience. As Marlboro lights have white as dominant color communicating more soothing effect rather than hard and fun loving experience. This image of the brand is recognized globally.
Jacobson N. & Bende W. (1996) mentioned that rules that govern color appearance, context, and expression can be used as the basis for interactive grammars. These grammars can be used to perform high-level tasks, which are the foundation for communicating with color messages, such as detection, legibility, and categorization, as well as expression.
They further described that in the field of visual communication, a wide variety of color experiences can be established. The use of color patterns and combinations set up experiences of color, each with its own unique “character.” However, even among varied experiences, it is possible to identify features that are common among color experiences: some experiences are energetic and others are weak.
Considering the previous example to analyze the color communication of the brands will further strengthen this phenomenon. Marlboro communicated its image through red color and rugged cowboy and their promotional activities highly communicate through these visual effects.
Guinness portrays its strong, confident yet elegant image through its black color. Kodak as leader in photographic equipments illustrates its refreshing, mature, warm and intelligent look.

They have used both bright colors yellow and red, although yellow being the dominant one, represents their Masculine ,mature, creative, warm ,friendly ,colorful and intelligent image.
Cadbury called as ‘kind of chocolate’ has been consistent with their purple color and consumer associated this color with Cadbury. It is color that is considered premium and depicts royalty.
FINDINGS
From above analysis where associations of colors to various activities are discusses it is evident that using this sensual appeal as color is highly useful for the international marketing strategies.
We found that although the customer perception to certain brands in different part of the world does not differ significantly but meaning of color varies to great extent from one country/culture to the other. So it is always suggested through previous researches that marketers should be well informed about these differences and ready to adapt changes according to the market needs and perceptions.
Further in marketing strategies color can be used as competitive tool to stand out from competition and it is highly used to grasp customer’s attention. Not only it plays a vital role to attract customers but it also allows retaining certain image of the brand in which color has a strong impact through which customers may also associate certain values of their own. Color is an assest and many companies register colors to their brands so that they can avoid customer distractions as other brands may have same color pattern. That’s how customers highly associate certain colors to brands and tends to remember them through their colors.
Usage of color to communicate the message is an efficient way of marketing as color itself communicates its message in a way they are perceived. Through various tones of colors marketers can target specific segment of customers. In a product line marketer uses various colors to differentiate their products from one another for to target the range of customer needs.
They can be used to create aesthetic feel in various products like smoothness, ruggedness, softness etc. A well used combination of color can communicate the product’s message to their target customers at a higher rate and have high chances to get adopted according to study.
CONCLUSION
Color remains a primary tool for marketing and when going international, company must be informed about different perception customer can get through the colors. Although this report may not focus on many other areas in which colors can perform effectively in marketing strategy building but we conclude to say that products perception through the visual sense have high influence on the customers and companies can use this as a strong marketing tool in their international marketing strategies. The fact that color has significant meaning in different cultures should not be ignored and companies before marketing globally must study in depth as to what image customer can perceive from their selection of colors.

REFERENCES:
Lindstrom M. (2005). Brand Sense, Build Powerful brands through Touch, Taste, Smell,
Sight, and Sound. Free Press: New York
Grimes, A. and Doole,I.(1998), “Exploring the Relationships BetweenColor and International
Branding: A Cross Cultural Comparison of the UK and Taiwan”.
Journal of Marketing
Management, Vol. 14,pp-799-817
Paul S. & Okan A. (2010), Color: Cross cultural marketing perspectives as to what governs our respond to it, American Society of Business and Behavioral Sciences . Vol 17:1
Jacobson N. & Bende W. (1996), Color as a determined communication. IBM System Journal
Volume 35:3&4.
Funk D. & Ndubisi N. (2006).
Color and product choice: a study of gender roles. Management
Research News . Vol. 29 No. 1/2, pp. 41-52