Everybody knows that colors are connected with certain feelings. For example, why do some people paint the walls of their rooms yellow and others pink? The same is true in stores. They want us to feel something when we look at their products.
Green, for example, tries to show the quality of a product: how good it is for us or for our environment. It also suggests that the product is healthier, has less fat and maybe fewer calories. Red, on the other hand is an aggressive color that is often used for packaging food. Red wants us to become hungry or thirsty. Purple is a kind of color that is often seen as royal. It indicates that it is something special. Producers use purple to show that something is of good quality. Blue is not very often found in food packaging because there are not very many foods that have a blue color.
Colors can also have different meaning in different cultures and countries. For example, while the color white is used in many Western countries to represent purity and innocence, it is seen as a symbol of mourning in many Eastern countries. The Egyptian pharaohs(法老) wore white crowns. A white sale is a sale of sheets, towels, and other bed and bath items. A white flag is the universal symbol for truce(休战). A white elephant is a rare, pale elephant sacred(神圣的) to the people of India, Thailand, Burma, and Sri Lanka. In these countries, something that is a white elephant is either a possession that costs more than it is worth to keep or an item that the owner doesn’t want but can’t get rid of.
Consumers are aware that certain foods must have certain colors. When Pepsi brought out a crystal clear cola in 1992, it thought that consumers would buy it because clear meant pure and healthy. After a few months Pepsi found out that a cola had to be dark-colored. Crystal Pepsi failed and the company pulled it off the market.
Advertising professionals often need to look at a product through the consumers’ eyes when choosing a color. The right packaging colors can truly improve the sales of a product but choosing a wrong color could end in failure.
小题1:According to the passage, blue is rarely used in food packaging because ____.
A．most consumers dislike it
B．it matches very few foods
C．it brings people low spirits
D．it doesn’t catch people’s eyes小题2:According to the passage, in India if something is expensive but useless, it can be called ____.
A．a white flag
B．a white elephant
C．a white sale
D．a white crown小题3:Pepsi’s example is used to show ____.
A．Pepsi’s success comes from failures
B．health is the main concern in drink making
C．crystal clear drinks can’t attract consumers
D．people have fixed ideas about products and colors小题4:What would be the best title for the passage?
A．Colors in advertising
B．Colors in food packaging
C．Our everyday life and colors
D．Foods in different colors
