Page 14 - PR Communication Age January-June2020

of various publications that have researched the connota- graphic region while the form collected other demographic
tions attributed to various colours in a general setting and information from the respondents. Physical surveys were
their impact on the purchase behaviour of the consumers also conducted in select neighbourhoods of Kolkata.
along with a correlational approach to understand the in-
terdependence of the mentioned factors in the advertise- Secondary Data, with regards to the general meanings of
ment and how specific colours enhance the perception of the selected colours, the associations and values key in the
the brand. The research can be said to be observational in industries and companies used as advertisements in the data
nature where both primary and secondary sources of data were collected from various articles and publications cited
were gathered and analysed. Since there are several mil- throughout the paper. Another form of data collection was
lion colours and the correlation between each type would the data collected from Facebook pages that A/B testing
not have been possible, the study taken into account 3 on 4 creatives in total. The A/B test involves Facebook show-
colours, Red, Blue & Yellow as the main focus of the study ing two different advertisements to an identical target
and uses the publications and the secondary data available group and allowing the page admins while keeping all fac-
to formulate the research tools that will enable the collec- tors constant compare the two advertisements on their
tion of primary data and its analysis with larger conventions. difference alone. In this case, the factor is the colour’s used
in the creatives. Facebook Ads were- run by a Facebook
For the advertisements taken in the questionnaire, most Page with a demographic of English speaking, 18-22 in Delhi,
were available on the internet and were actual advertise- Mumbai, Kolkata & Bangalore. The duration was 15th –
ments by the various companies. In the situation where the 20th March 2020.
required colour was not available for the testing, an adver-
tisement was created by us using the image editing soft- Sampling Design
ware Photoshop CC 2019.
A convenience sampling technique was used for this re-
search, data was collected from Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai
The research involved asking respondents direct questions
and Bangalore. The majority of the 198 respondents are
with regards to the importance of colours in contrast to
from Kolkata (123). The online survey and the physical sur-
other factors. The second section involved showing the
veys were identical and generated 168 and 30 responses
participants 3 sets of advertisements, separated merely on
respectively.
the basis of colours. The advertisements were of the Apple
iPod, McDonald’s and an insurance company XL Catlin. The
The physical surveys were conducted from 15th – 20th
last section of the questionnaire was a qualitative method March 2020 while the online questionnaire was circulated
where respondents were asked to describe in one word, the
from 18th – 21st April 2020. A second round of surveys was
feelings/emotions perceived by the 3 colours. To reduce the
conducted from 21st May – 30th May, 2020.
primacy and recency bias, the questions would automati-
cally shuffle their order for every respondent who filled the
online survey. This was especially used for the specific ad-
vertisements’ selection and the display of factors in the
ranking parameters sections.

Data Collection Methods
Primary Data, was collected with the help of an online
questionnaire distributed into 4 sections and circulated via
social media, chat groups and close circles. The link shared
was an embedded link which linked with Google Analytics
to provide further information such as mobile type & geo-

"You don't choose who you fall in love with, but you do choose who you marry."

14 PR COMMUNICATION AGE January - June 2020