Ever considered the importance of color in branding? Color plays a huge role in memory recall. It stimulates all the senses, instantly conveying a message like no other communication method.

Choosing the right dominant color for your brand is crucial. This color should appear on your website and on all your promotional material. Here’s a quick look at the most common impression each color conveys:

Blue: Cool blue is perceived as trustworthy, dependable, fiscally responsible and secure. Blue is an especially popular color with financial institutions.

Red: Red activates your pituitary gland, increasing your heart rate and causing you to breathe more rapidly. Count on red to evoke a passionate response.

Green: In general, green connotes health, freshness and serenity. Deeper greens are associated with wealth or prestige, while light greens are calming.

Yellow: In every society, yellow is associated with the sun. It communicates optimism, light and warmth. Certain shades seem to motivate and stimulate creative thought and energy. The eye sees bright yellows before any other color, making them great for point-of-purchase displays.

Purple: Purple is a color favored by creative types. It evokes mystery, sophistication, spirituality and royalty. Lavender evokes nostalgia and sentimentality.

Pink: Hot pinks convey energy, youthfulness, fun and excitement. Dusty pinks appear sentimental. Lighter pinks are more romantic.

Orange: Cheerful orange evokes exuberance, fun and vitality. Orange is viewed as gregarious and often childlike. Lighter shades appeal to an upscale market. Peach tones work well with health care, restaurants and beauty salons.

Brown: This earthy color conveys simplicity, durability and stability. Certain shades of brown, like terracotta, can convey an upscale look.

Black: Black is serious, bold, powerful and classic. It creates drama and connotes sophistication. Black works well for expensive products, but can also make a product look heavy.

White: White connotes simplicity, cleanliness and purity. The human eye views white as a brilliant color, so it immediately catches the eye in signage. White is often used with infant and health-related products.

Choose your website background color with care!

Mojo Videoman Scott Allman

Well, I’d like to think it was that Emmy Attraction Spell we brewed up for our video producer, Scott Allman... but I’ll have to admit it was probably more likely his own creative talents and remarkable video production skills that enabled him to pick up a 2009 Michigan EMMY Award last night in Detroit. No, it wasn’t for Mojo Videos, but we couldn’t be more proud of our partner!

At any rate, it joins the other EMMY -and a bunch of other shiny awards -on Scott’s fireplace mantle. You can get a glimpse of them just over my shoulder if you look closely at the Marketing Mojo Minute videos -a few were shot on location in his fonky living room.

It does my heart good to work with people of Scott’s caliber.

Congrats, brother!

"Tie up the alligator, Ethel. We're a'headed for the Big Easy."

We have the enviable task of currently being in New Orleans to shoot some video for both our Guide to Marketing Mojo and a few new Mojo Marketing Minutes. You’ll see the latter right here at some time in the near future; and you’ll be able to catch the former by signing up right here.

Of course, the fact that our location shooting schedule coincides with the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival -perhaps the funkiest, grooviest, funnest music fest in the country -is just a happy coincidence. Also just by coincidence, I have a number of musician friends here and no doubt will be sitting in and playing a little piano now and again. It’s definitely serendipity that that we’re here and will get a chance to meet some of the cast & characters from the hot new HBO series, Treme.

We’ll try to do an update shortly but there’s a lot to keep me distracted. You know how it is.