With the Labour leadership contest well under way and the hustings getting ever more heated, various epithets are being attributed to the candidates and past political mavericks are coming out of the woodwork in support or otherwise. And poor Jeremy is being found guilty by association and being given similar monikers! Uppermost amongst these is the colour Red, no doubt borrowed from former London Mayor and seemingly a Mr Corbyn supporter, Ken Livingston.

This got me thinking as to the psychology of colour in establishing market leaders. From brand identities, to advertising, from packaging to print, what value and values, positive or negative, can a colour bring to a brand and it’s personality when integrated into its marketing communications?

And the colour red, it seems, is a pretty good place to start.

Red, in political terms, can of course translate as the values of the Left, leaning all the way to Red Square. Perversely, they can also be the colour of the marketplace, of capitalism and of the commerciality in announcing and displaying discounts and sales. And so, while the heritage in product packaging and marketing communications likely goes back to the days of the need and desire to achieve standout from the crowd, today it can also be perceived as cheap and unsophisticated – though Virgin’s Upper Class might have something to say about that!

Red can also be alarming, or a danger to be avoided, but it will also ask us to stop doing something if we are to take our lead from traffic lights. So why and how have so many brands, and across a variety of sectors, adopted red and patently achieved such a high degree of warmth and affinity for its identity and brand? (Though interestingly, none that I can recall in Financial Services have taken to using red – maybe red is too alarmist and a conservative Pantone 246 blue is more attune to us parting with our money. So perhaps that is why few of us feel any real warmth towards FS brands. Maybe it’s time to for a change?)

It’s time for a cup of tea here and to ponder this. So I’ve raided the fridge, only to see an array of biscuits where the colour red dominates their packaging. It cannot be that the use of red is just to ensure packs are clearly seen on supermarket shelves. I have heard it said that red has been shown to increase appetite too. So maybe that is a reason why it is so widely used in the food industry? But perhaps it is also the fact that red engenders warmth for the brand, creating greater affinity for it, a cosier relationship maybe and so brand loyalty and repeat purchase.

But think of the cooler blue of BMW’s brand identity – no problem with sales figures here! Efficient; innovative; advanced – so not much warmth there beyond the heated seats and so it is in their copy and in their imagery that BMW have taken other routes to build their brand warmth and loyalty.

So if we think of Virgin, KFC, Heinz and Lego, for example – did they have a head start? They are all brands where red dominates their identity. Whether they did or not, today they must all be thanking their lucky stars that red is a lucky colour in China. And as for McVitie’s Penguins, Nestle’s KitKat and Burton’s Jammie Dodgers, where red also dominates, they just could get very lucky hobnobbing in the largest of markets.

So no great conclusion here, but in the words of Hill Street Blues, when attributing colour to a brand and its communications, “be careful out there”. The strength and warmth of red, combined with its natural standout, as an example, might encourage us to cuddle-up with a product, but with a politician? I think not Jeremy!