Give me red...

The title reminds me of eveready battery ads that used to be telecasted on doordarshan when I was a kid. They used to be one of the most stylish ads of those times. But this blog is not about my nostalgia of eveready battery ads, it is about the 'Red rage' that has caught the Indian market lately.

A professor of marketing once mentioned in his pre lecture trivia that he has been noticing excessive red lately. He mentioned the increasing number of red cars on the road these days and also mentioned a store in Mumbai which only sells products that are red in color (which I found weird). A year later, I started to feel an excess of the colour red around me and his words echoed in my mind. I thought it was probably the effect of Vodafone paiting India red. After all, Vodafone and Airtel are undoubtedly the most noticed brands because of the number of hoardings and stickers they put up in all possible places. But these brands have always been red, so I kept musing until I noticed a trend that I assume is worth a mention here. A lot of brands have been turning red lately. UTI bank changed its name to Axis bank and turned its logo red. Kingfisher acquired Air Deccan and renamed the airline Kingfisher Red. India Post launched its new Red & yellow logo. Reliance Fresh has red as the base colour on its outlets. Reliance has been using green, blue, red and white for years. The new logo has the same colour scheme, but the background has been smartly turned red to increase the Redness. The UB group recently launched Romanov Red, a sub-premium vodka brand. A small red addition was the LG scarlet LCD TV series.

We all know that red is the most easily noticable colour and is usually associated with danger and sex appeal. but when I tried to find out the reason why marketers have this eternal love for red, I discovered that red enhances metabolism, increases respiration rate and raises blood pressure, which clearly explains the aforementioned associations.

The urban legend about The Coca Cola Company turning the green Santa red has been forgotten long ago. But with all the brands joining the Red bandwagon, I wonder what Indian folklorists will come up with. A secret society of marketers conspiring the color cues to trigger a consumption revolution...who knows...