Painting Your Point: The Role of Color in Firms' Strategic Responses to Product Failures via Advertising and Marketing Communications

Abstract

Color plays a significant role in firms' strategic marketing communications and advertising. This research examines how color (red versus blue) in advertising and marketing communications that follow a firm's failure dynamically influences consumers' interpretations of negative firm information and sensitivity to the firm's response to the failure. We find that the color red used in postfailure advertising and firm marketing communications narrows the scope of consumers' conceptual attention on the firm failure and makes consumers less sensitive to a firm's response to the failure. In contrast, exposure to the color blue expands the scope of consumers' conceptual attention and makes them integrate the firm's response in their firm evaluations. In addition, the negative effect of red is mitigated via the use of a more benign cue, leading to the broadening of the scope of conceptual attention and integration of a firm's response that are consistent with blue cues.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at www.tandfonline.com/ujoa.

Notes

1. Including general attitudes toward red and blue color as covariates in the analysis did not alter the significance of these results.

2. We also used the adjusted ratio of clustering (ARC; Roenker, Thompson, and Brown 1971 measure that showed similar results; see online appendix.