Complementary colors and consumer behavior: emotional affect, attitude, and purchase intention in the context of web banner advertisements

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study how color contrast (complementary vs. analogous colors) affect individuals’ emotions and attitudes towards advertisements and purchase intention in the context of online web banner advertisements. Our study found that the complementary color pair of green and red elicited statistically higher levels of pleasure than all other color sets (yellow-violet complementary; orange, orange-red, orange-yellow analogous; and blue, blue-green, blue-violet analogous). Furthermore, the green and red complementary color set had more positive attitudes and higher purchase intentions when used as the background of a web banner advertisement than all over color sets.