Color trends heat up sales

From Four Star Greenhouses:

In a highly visual industry like ours, color is everything. Keeping up with color trends can help growers and retailers inspire consumers and in turn, increase profits.

Pantone, considered by many to be the authority on color, names an annual “color of the year,” that drives product development in just about every industry, from fashion to product packaging. This year’s color, “radiant orchid,” is a joyful, purplish-pink, which Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, says is a captivating, charming purple that “inspires confidence and emanates great joy, love and health.”
How to Forecast Color Trends

So what influences color trends? While there’s no one driver that determines the “in” colors, one factor does have a tremendous influence: the economy.

Maryann Cole, owner of design firm Marigold Design, serves on the board for the Color Marketing Group, which includes experts from numerous industries across the globe who gather to forecast color trends. “Color trends are driven by what is happening in the economy,” Cole says. In 2008 and 2009, for example, when the U.S. was heading into a recession, yellow was the No. 1 color. “No other color expresses hope and reassurance more than yellow,” Cole explains. “When you think of yellow, you think of sunshine – it’s such a happy color.”

Now that the economy is improving, the popular colors, such as radiant orchid, represent joy, love and hope. “People are combining a lot of different colors right now,” Cole adds.

That holds true in the greenhouse industry, too, according to Proven Winners’ color research. “When the economy is healthy, there’s more tolerance for mixed and wild color combinations,” says Proven Winners Director of Marketing Marshall Dirks.

Because plants take so long to develop, breeders generally aren’t able to release a new variety the year a color becomes popular, Dirks adds, but Proven Winners has told breeders they’re looking for purple, pink and blue hues. Bicolors are also hot.

When it comes to combination planters, Dirks says consumers are once again leaning toward foliage and flower combinations. But high-contrast combinations like reds with purples are still “risky,” while complementary colors in more muted tones remain popular right now.

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