Abstract Green is commonly used in marketing to evoke utilitarian and environmental cues, whereas red is regularly found on food logos to induce arousal and excitement. This paper investigates how these colors may contribute to consumer evaluations of premiumness through congruence and incongruence between the marketing message and color on product packages. The literature suggests that, although congruence between product elements and the marketing message often is evaluated as more appropriate, a “moderate incongruence effect” may result in consumer preferences for a moderate incongruence between design elements. Two between-subject experiments suggest that the premise of congruity or incongruity applies to explaining how colors may evoke higher premium evaluations. Study 1 demonstrates that for a product of hedonic nature, consumers will evaluate the product as more premium when the color and product framing are congruent (e.g., red on a package framed as “tasting delicious” or green on a package sold as “healthy”). Study 2 demonstrates the opposite effect by suggesting that when a product is primarily utilitarian, it will be perceived as more premium when the framing of the product and the color are incongruent (e.g., green on the package marketed for its “delicious taste” or red on the package sold as “healthy”). The study adds a novel understanding of how the mechanism of congruence and incongruence between color and a hedonic versus utilitarian marketing message can lead to premium associations. It also has practical implications for marketing managers as to how one can enhance the premium evaluations through color and marketing message.

中文翻译：

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唤起溢价：颜色产品一致性如何影响溢价评估

摘要 绿色在营销中常用来唤起功利和环境暗示，而红色则经常出现在食品标识上，以引起唤醒和兴奋。本文研究了这些颜色如何通过营销信息与产品包装上的颜色之间的一致性和不一致来促进消费者对优质的评估。文献表明，虽然产品元素和营销信息之间的一致性通常被评估为更合适，但“适度不一致效应”可能会导致消费者偏好设计元素之间的适度不一致。两个受试者之间的实验表明，一致或不一致的前提适用于解释颜色如何引起更高的溢价评估。研究 1 表明，对于享乐性质的产品，当颜色和产品框架一致时，消费者会认为该产品更优质（例如，包装上的红色框为“美味可口”或绿色的包装框为“健康”）。研究 2 表明了相反的效果，它表明当产品主要是实用主义时，如果产品的框架和颜色不一致（例如，因其“美味”而销售的包装上的绿色或红色在作为“健康”出售的包装上）。该研究增加了对颜色与享乐与功利营销信息之间的一致性和不一致机制如何导致溢价联想的新理解。它还对营销经理关于如何通过颜色和营销信息增强溢价评估具有实际意义。