39 STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF ADVERTISEMENT DESIGN INCORPORATING COLOR PSYCHOLOGY ON CONSUMER ANXIETY
Authors: Liu Enxi 
Published: February 2025

Abstract

Background
The basic principles of color psychology show that different colors can trigger specific emotions, behaviors and reactions. For example, warm colors are associated with energy, passion and warmth, evoking feelings of excitement and intensity; Cool colors, on the other hand, are calming and are often associated with serenity, peace and relaxation. The advertisement design integrating color psychology can alleviate consumers’ anxiety to a certain extent by influencing consumers’ emotional response. Individual emotions are affected by their own environment and subjective feelings. In order to reduce such effects, the research makes rational use of color and emotional effects, so that advertising design can become an effective tool to relieve consumers’ anxiety. The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of integrating color psychology into advertising design on consumer anxiety.

Methods
In this study, 60 online shopping platform users were recruited as volunteers through an online platform, and the profile of mood states (POMS) was used to evaluate the anxiety state of consumers when they watched ordinary advertisements and advertisements with color psychology. The scale involves 5 negative emotional areas (tension, anger, fatigue, depression and panic) and 2 positive emotional areas (energy and self-esteem). Each adjective is set with 5 degree options. The higher the score, the worse the mood state of the patient. Through in-depth understanding of the principles of color psychology, such as the cold and warm sense of color, bright and lively sense, excitement and grade sense, according to the advertising theme and the characteristics of the target audience, choose the color collocation that can arouse the resonance of consumers for advertising design.

Results
At the time of enrollment, there was no significant difference in scores and total scores of all emotional fields among 60 volunteers (P&gt;0.05). After watching ordinary advertisements, POMS negative emotion field score and total score were lower than those in the group, and POMS positive emotion field score was higher than that in the group. After watching the ads integrated with color psychology, the score and total score of POMS in the negative emotion field were lower than those after watching ordinary ads, and the score of POMS in the positive emotion field was higher than that after watching ordinary ads (P&lt;0.05).

Discussion
The results of this study show that advertising design based on the concept of color psychology can improve consumers’ self-efficacy. Bright colors produce sensory stimulation for consumers, making them in a mild and suitable living environment for a long time, improving the efficiency of communication, thereby increasing self-efficacy and easing anxiety. Consumer anxiety is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, it not only affects individual consumption behavior, but also closely related to social and economic structure and advertising strategy. By understanding the root causes and effects of consumer anxiety, advertising and marketing strategies can be designed more effectively to alleviate consumer anxiety and promote healthy consumer behaviors.