148 - The Colours of Fast Food

What this episode covers

The colours in fast food restaurants isn't all as it seems.   Subscribe: ITUNES | ANDROID | STITCHER | RSS FEED Music and links from this episode 7-La hache et le canoë by Pousse Mousse 4-Roulé-boulé-boulé by Pousse Mousse Dans la batterie solo by Frederic Lardon feat Laura Palmée Line-by-line notes As I’m in the marketing game I see lots of things in a different way When you’re in marketing Or when you’re a designer You don’t take anything at face value My episode yesterday about Photoshop discussed that a little bit But today, I want to focus on something else that has hidden meanings Fast food This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess Let’s start with something really basic And something that you won’t even think about consciously That’s colour Obviously, everything has a particular colour When I spoke about political parties in episodes 145 and 144, I talked about colour a lot And the meaning of colour In politics, red means a socialist/left leaning party, almost exclusively around the world And blue means the opposite I think Those two things, just taken by themselves, Are pretty fascinating Before you even see anything else, a logo, words, anything The colour of something is already influencing you And beyond politics, the psychology behind colour goes even deeper than that Believe or not When you see a colour Just the simple act of a colour bouncing off of your retina The it being processed by your brain This still starts to influence you, and do all kinds of things to your mood, your hunger levels, your priorities It’s really quite crazy when you think about it And maybe just a little bit creepy Fast food companies are the absolute masters at using colour to great influencing effect Let’s take the colour red again It’s been proven that the colour red stimulates appetite That’s why so many fast food logos Burger King, McDonalds, KFC Are all predominantly red And you have not a single say on how the colour red influences you Because it’s programmed into your brain already And it’s programmed to instinctually think things when presented with stimuli Red and yellow used together, as they so often are in fast food restaurants, represents speed And also, yellow is one of the most visible colours you can choose at any time of day, but especially in daylight, which is why McDonalds chose it for their giant M arches all around the globe And because red and yellow has become so well known in fast food Any other fast food places that open also pick these colours Perpetuating the standard that fast food restaurants should be red and yellow And as more and more fast food restaurants pop up using these colours The more you associate red and yellow with fast food It’s genius really One other point that’s interesting though Is how a lot of McDonalds have started implementing the colour green in their restaurants now I’m not sure if it’s a worldwide thing, but this is a thing in the UK They haven’t picked a garish green, they’ve picked a dark olive green An earthy green And this gives McDonalds immediately a much different impression They’ve also upgraded to wooden tables and benches in a lot of their restaurants too It gives off lots of new impressions of McDonalds Mainly around quality It makes you think about natural foods, and the environment Lots of natural foods and vegetarian products use dark greens in their packaging And it’s no accident McDonalds have chosen this as they’ve also been banging the "100% chicken and beef” marketing drum The green also makes McDonalds feel more adult And maybe a little bit more like a place to relax like a coffee shop And not just a crappy fast food restaurant for crappy fast food When you think about colour theory and the psychology of colour There isn’t many greater examples than looking at fast food joints. Next time you see a colour in a restaurant Have a think what it’s trying to say to you Because I guarantee...